Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016 Nov;143(2):393-397.
doi: 10.1016/j.ygyno.2016.08.325. Epub 2016 Aug 25.

The CD47 "don't eat me signal" is highly expressed in human ovarian cancer

R M Brightwell  1 , K S Grzankowski  1 , S Lele  2 , K Eng  3 , M Arshad  4 , H Chen  4 , K Odunsi  5
Affiliations

The CD47 "don't eat me signal" is highly expressed in human ovarian cancer

R M Brightwell et al. Gynecol Oncol. 2016 Nov.

Abstract

Objectives: The CD47 "don't eat me" signal allows tumor immune evasion. We tested the association of CD47 expression with outcomes in EOC.

Methods: CD47 expression was examined within the TCGA database for ovarian carcinoma. For validation, IHC was performed on a TMA consisting of specimens from 265 patients with EOC. The medical records of the patients were also retrospectively reviewed to correlate demographic and survival data.

Results: CD47 was amplified in 15/316 (5%) ovarian serous cancers in TCGA. In the validation cohort, the majority of patients had stage III/IV disease (208/265, 78.4%). CD47 expression was seen in 210/265 (79.2%). Patients were categorized into CD47hi (129/265; 48.7%) versus CD47lo (136/265; 51.3%). Patients with CD47lo tumors were more likely to have a complete response to adjuvant therapy than CD47hi (65% vs 50%, p=0.026). Although there was a trend towards an increase in median OS (37.64 vs 45.26months, p=0.92) in the CD47lo group compared with CD47hi, the difference was not significant.

Conclusions: CD47 is expressed at high frequency in EOC. Patients with CD47lo EOC had a better treatment response to standard therapy, and trended towards improved OS. This demonstrates that while CD47 may be an immunologic shield that may be considered for targeted therapies, it is likely that it operates in concert with other mechanisms of immune evasion. Future studies to evaluate CD47 expression with other known mechanisms of immune escape in the tumor microenvironment may help further define its role.

Keywords: CD4(+) T cells; CD47; CD8(+) T-cell activation; IFN-γ; NY-ESO-1; Ovarian cancer; SIRPα; anti-tumor effect.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. CD-47 IHC staining
Specimens were stained with Anti-CD47 polyclonal antibody. The external controls were used to assure equal and adequate staining across the TMA itself.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Jaiswal S, et al. CD47 is upregulated on circulating hematopoietic stem cells and leukemia cells to avoid phagocytosis. Cell. 2009;138:271–285. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Willingham S, Volkmer J, Gentles A, Sahoo D, Dalerba P, et al. The CD47-signal regulatory protein alpha (SIRP α ) interaction is a therapeutic target for human solid tumors. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2012;109(17):6662–6667. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Olenborg PA. CD47: A Cell Surface Glycoprotein Which Regulates Multiple Functions of Hematopoietic Cells in Health and Disease. International Scholarly Research Notices. 2013;2013:1–19. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gali S, Zlobec I, Schürch C, Perrena A, Ochsenbein A, Banz Y. CD47 protein expression in acute myeloid leukemia: A tissue microarray-based analysis. Leukemia research. 2015;39(7):749–756. - PubMed
    1. Olenborg PA. Role of CD47 in erythroid cells and in autoimmunity. Leuk Lymphoma. 2004;45:1319–1327. - PubMed