The putative oncogenic role of
ATP/
GTP binding protein like 2 (AGBL2) in catalyzing α-
tubulin detyrosination has recently been characterized in
cancer. However, the status of AGBL2 expression in
ovarian cancer and its potential clinical and prognostic significance remain unclear. In the present study, immunohistochemistry staining investigated the
protein expression level of AGBL2 in
paraffin-embedded pathological specimens from 30 normal ovaries, 35 ovarian
cystadenomas, 38 borderline ovarian
tumors and 165 invasive ovarian
carcinomas. The association between AGBL2 expression and clinicopathological characteristics of patients was evaluated using the χ2 test or Fisher's exact test. The survival status of patients was assessed by receiver-operator curve analysis. The results demonstrated that high expression of AGBL2 was observed in 9% of
cystadenomas cases, 21% of borderline
tumors cases and 38% of ovarian
carcinomas cases; however AGBL2 expression was not high in normal ovarian tissues (P<0.01). Furthermore, the results demonstrated that high expression of AGBL2 was associated with
tumor histological grade, advanced pT/pN/pM and
cancer stage according to the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (P<0.05). Following univariate survival analysis of the ovarian
carcinoma groups, high expression of AGBL2 was significantly associated with shorter patient survival (P<0.001). In addition, multivariate analysis revealed that AGBL2 could be identified as a potential independent prognostic factor for overall survival in patients with ovarian
carcinoma (P=0.004). Furthermore, the results demonstrated that AGBL2 expression was significantly associated with the expression of immunity related
GTPase M (IRGM) (P=0.013) and LC3A/B (P=0.004). IRGM expression level was also significantly associated with LC3A/B expression level (P=0.023). These findings demonstrated that AGBL2 expression was high in ovarian
carcinomas, which suggested that AGBL2 may participate in the acquisition of an aggressive phenotype and may therefore serve as an independent prognostic molecular marker.