EOC accounts for about 2.5% of all female malignant tumors, but its mortality rate ranks the first in malignant tumors of the female reproductive system. During the past two decades, the overall mortality rate of all cancers decreased by about 29% with the advancement of screening and treatment modalities [
1]. However, the 5-year survival rate of ovarian cancer remained unchanged, only about 48.6% [
2]. Currently, debulking surgery combined with adjuvant chemotherapy and/or targeted therapy is the standard treatment of EOC [
3]. Targeted therapies of EOC include vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitors [
4], poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors (PARPi) [
5,
6], and immune checkpoint inhibitors [
7]. However, many patients did not benefit from the targeted treatments for the absence of related gene mutations. For example, the overall germline and somatic mutation rates of
BRCA1/2 or homologous recombination deficiency in EOC patients are only about 24% [
8]. Immune checkpoint inhibitors enable T cells to kill tumors by reversing the combination of programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) of T cells and programmed cell death-Ligand 1(PD-L1) of tumor cells which is aimed at patients with recurrent EOC characterized by microsatellite instability-high, mismatch repair deficiency, or high tumor mutation burden [
8]. However, EOC lacks T lymphocyte infiltration and the infiltrating T lymphocytes cannot recognize all tumor antigens which results in poor response rates of immunotherapy [
9]. After standard debulking surgery and systemic chemotherapy combined with VEGF inhibitors or PARPi, the relapse was inevitable in more than 80% of patients of Stage III-IV EOC patients [
2]. Therefore, it is urgent to further clarify the biological behavior of EOC cells to find new treatment methods.
Carcinogenesis is a multistep process and needs a set of functional capabilities which include sustaining proliferative signaling, evading growth suppressors, resisting cell death, enabling replicative immortality, inducing/accessing vasculature, activating invasion and metastasis, reprogramming cellular metabolism, and avoiding immune destruction [
10]. Of these hallmarks, reprogramming cellular metabolism provides the bases for uncontrolled sustaining cell proliferation, activating invasion and metastasis, and avoiding immune destruction which is also the characteristics of EOC. However, different cancers have their genotypes and the same genotype may have discrete phenotypes for disrupted differentiation, epigenetic reprogramming, varying origins, and specific microenvironment. High-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSOC) has its specific origins, invasion, metastasis, and treatment response. The HGSOC mainly originated from fallopian [
11], which remains only EOC and serous tubular intra-epithelial carcinomas in most cases [
12]. Different from many cancers which require the blood or lymph to metastasize, HGSOC grows on the surface of the ovary or fallopian tube and typically spreads by direct extension to the adjacent organs within the peritoneal cavity. Once the cells can implant and seed distant organs or tissues with nests of cancer cells, they develop rapidly into secondary tumor nodules, such as omentum which was mainly compromised with adipocytes. Besides, p53 plays dual roles in tumor responses to chemotherapeutic responses in different tumors [
13]. P53 is the single most frequently altered gene in human cancers and is present in approximately 50% of all invasive tumors [
14]. P53 mutation predicted resistance to chemotherapy in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, esophageal cancer, and oropharyngeal cancers [
15]. The mechanisms involved enhancing drug efflux and metabolism, promoting survival, inhibiting apoptosis, upregulating DNA repair, suppressing autophagy, elevating microenvironmental resistance, and inducing a stem-like phenotype. Whereas, head and neck squamous cancer, some breast cancer, and ovarian cancers were associated with sensitivity to certain chemotherapeutic agents [
16]. In locally advanced breast cancer, P53 mutated non-inflammatory carcinomas had a high rate of complete pathological response to dose-dense doxorubicin-cyclophosphamide chemotherapy, while p53 wild-type tumors never achieved complete response [
17]. Besides, the rapid proliferation of EOC cells needs a highly efficient power on the perception, uptake, utilization, and regulation of glucose, lipids, and amino acids. Further, tumor cells complete implanted metastasis by acquiring a superior advantage in microenvironment nutrients competing. Lastly, tumor cells succeed evolve under the treatment stress of chemotherapy and target therapy.
Therefore, we summarize the metabolic rewiring of HGSOC cells to meet the uncontrolled sustain proliferation, implanted metastasis, and evolution under treatment stress to ultimately provide new strategies for its treatment.