Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Obstet Gynecol. Feb 10, 2016; 5(1): 39-49
Published online Feb 10, 2016. doi: 10.5317/wjog.v5.i1.39
Pathobiological role of MUC16 mucin (CA125) in ovarian cancer: Much more than a tumor biomarker
Alain Piché
Alain Piché, Département de Microbiologie et Infectiologie, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke J1H 5N1, Canada
Author contributions: Piché A wrote the paper.
Supported by Internal Funding from Université de Sherbrooke.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Author declares no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Alain Piché, MD, Département de Microbiologie et Infectiologie, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Sherbrooke, 3001, 12ième Avenue Nord, Sherbrooke J1H 5N1, Canada. alain.piche@usherbrooke.ca
Telephone: +1-819-3461110-75734 Fax: +1-819-5645392
Received: August 24, 2015
Peer-review started: August 28, 2015
First decision: November 6, 2015
Revised: November 11, 2015
Accepted: December 8, 2015
Article in press: December 11, 2015
Published online: February 10, 2016
Processing time: 159 Days and 21.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: MUC16/CA125 has been a mainstay biomarker for ovarian cancer but its pathobiological role has remained mostly unknown. Recent literature has shown that MUC16 is much more than a biomarker. MUC16 has oncogenic properties and plays an important role in tumorigenesis. Here, we will review the current knowledge regarding the oncogenic role of MUC16.