SK-OV-3 (also known as SKOV-3; SK.OV.3; SKOV3; Skov3 and SKO3) is an ovarian cancer
cell line
An immortalised cell line is a population of cells from a multicellular organism which would normally not proliferate indefinitely but, due to mutation, have evaded normal cellular senescence and instead can keep undergoing division. The cell ...
derived from the
ascites
Ascites is the abnormal build-up of fluid in the abdomen. Technically, it is more than 25 ml of fluid in the peritoneal cavity, although volumes greater than one liter may occur. Symptoms may include increased abdominal size, increased weight, ab ...
of a 64-year-old Caucasian female with an ovarian serous
cystadenocarcinoma
Cystadenocarcinoma is a malignant form of a cystadenoma and is a cancer derived from glandular epithelium, in which cystic accumulations of retained secretions are formed. The neoplastic cells manifest varying degrees of anaplasia and invasivenes ...
. The SK-OV-3 cell line is also hypodiploid, with a modal number of chromosomes of 43 (range 42-45), occurring in 63.3% of cells. SK-OV-3 are positive for many of the antigens used to identify cancers of epithelial origin in clinical practice, including vimentin (VIM), high molecular weight cytokeratin (HMWK), low molecular weight cytokeratin (LMWK), epithelial membrane antigen (EMA) and leucocyte common antigen (LCA).
Use in Research
Early work by Fogh, J. in 1986 showed that SK-OV-3 cells do not express the MUC16 (CA125) mucin antigen (that later became the most frequently used biomarker for ovarian cancer detection) and also showed using dose-response curves that SK-OV-3 were platinum sensitive. It was subsequently shown that ectopic expression of the MUC16 C-terminal domain in SK-OV-3 cells decreases their sensitivity to cisplatin-induced apoptosis.
SK-OV-3 have been shown to produce large solid tumours (>1.5 cm^3) when injected into
nude mice
A nude mouse is a laboratory mouse from a strain with a genetic mutation that causes a deteriorated or absent thymus, resulting in an inhibited immune system due to a greatly reduced number of T cells. The phenotype (main outward appearance) of ...
, with tumours loosely adhering to fat in the pelvic region, intestines and/or
omentum.
[Shaw, T. J., Senterman, M. K., Dawson, K., Crane, C. A. and Vanderhyden, B. C., 2004. Characterization of intraperitoneal, orthotopic, and metastatic xenograft models of human ovarian cancer. Molecular therapy, 10(6), pp.1032-1042.]
This cell line is also part of the
NCI-60 The NCI-60 cancer cell line panel is a group of 60 human cancer cell lines used by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for the screening of compounds to detect potential anticancer activity.
Purpose
The screening procedure is called the NCI-60 ...
cancer cell line panel used by the National Cancer Institute.
References
{{reflist
External links
Cellosaurus entry for SK-OV-3
Human cell lines