Overexpression of tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated protein 1 (TRAP1) are associated with poor prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer

Tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated protein 1 (TRAP1 or Hsp75) is a member of the mitochondrial heat shock proteins. TRAP1 expression is associated with drug and apoptosis resistance in various human cancers. This study assessed TRAP1 expression in tissue specimens of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) and its association with clinicopathological features and survival of EOC patients. Tissue samples from 356 patients were collected for immunohistochemical analysis of TRAP1 expression. TRAP1 levels in EOC tissues were significantly higher than that in noncancerous tissues. TRAP1 expression was associated with poor EOC differentiation, advanced pT stages, lymph node and distant metastasis, and advanced FIGO stages (p < 0.05). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that TRAP1 expression was associated with poor prognosis of EOC patients and multivariate analysis revealed that TRAP1 expression (relative risk 6.720, CI 4.100-11.015, p < 0.001), tumor grade (p = 0.001), pathology stages (p = 0.001), and FIGO stage (p = 0.017) were all independent predictors of patients' overall survival. These data demonstrate for the first time that increased TRAP1 expression was significantly associated with EOC stages and poor prognosis. Future studies are needed to confirm the role of TRAP1 as a prognostic tumor marker in EOC.