High expression of UCH37 is significantly associated with poor prognosis in human epithelial ovarian cancer

Ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase 37 (UCH37) is a member of deubiquitinating enzymes. It can suppress protein degradation through disassembling polyubiquitin from the distal subunit of the chain. The aim of this study was to assess the value of UCH37 in predicting tumor recurrence after curative resection in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) patients. In this study, the expression level of UCH37 in 5 paired EOC and normal tissue was tested by Western blot. And the association of UCH37 expression and prognostic value was analyzed in 100 tumor specimens from EOC patients, who underwent curative resection between 2003 and 2011. We found that UCH37 was up-regulated in most of the tumor tissue and high expression of UCH37 was an independent significant predictor associated with the poor outcome and recurrence of EOC (p = 0.0037 and p = 0.0042 in overall and disease-free survival, respectively), especially in the advanced stage of EOC (p = 0.0106 and p = 0.0115 in overall and disease-free survival, respectively), and may become a novel predictor for prognosis of EOC patients after curative resection. Our data suggest for the first time that UCH37 overexpression is associated with advanced tumor progression and poor clinical outcome of EOC patients and may help physicians make informed decisions regarding adjuvant treatment following curative resection.