SHORT COMMUNICATION Biochemical composition of malignant ascites determines high aggressiveness of undifferentiated ovarian tumors Justyna Mikula-Pietrasik 1 • Pawel Uruski 1 • Sebastian Szubert 2 • Rafal Moszyn ´ski 2 • Dariusz Szpurek 2 • Stefan Sajdak 2 • Andrzej Tykarski 1 • Krzysztof Ksia ˛ _ zek 1 Received: 1 July 2016 / Accepted: 9 July 2016 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 Abstract Although undifferentiated tumors are the most lethal among all ovarian cancer histotypes, the exact rea- sons for this situation are unclear. This report was aimed at investigating whether the high aggressiveness of undiffer- entiated ovarian cancer may be associated with a bio- chemical composition of malignant ascites accumulating in the peritoneal cavity. We analyzed ascites from patients with undifferentiated, high-grade serous, endometrioid and clear-cell ovarian cancers, and from non-cancerous patients with respect to a group of soluble agents involved in cancer cell progression. Moreover, the effect of these fluids on proliferation and migration of ovarian cancer cells (A2780, OVCAR-3 and SKOV-3) was evaluated. The study showed that the level of all tested proteins in malignant ascites was higher than in the benign fluids. Concentration of 9/11 agents (CCL2, CXCL1, CXCL5, CXCL8, CXCL12, HGF, PAI-1, TGF-b1 and VEGF) was the greatest in the fluids from undifferentiated cancer, while the level of remaining 2 (IL-6 and uPA) was the highest in ascites from serous carcinoma. Proliferation of cancer cells was the most effective when they were subjected to ascites from patients with undifferentiated and serous cancer, whereas the migration was the highest in the case of undifferentiated tumors. Our findings indicate that the aggressiveness of undifferentiated ovarian tumors may be associated with the composition of malignant ascites, in particular the con- centration of specific proinflammatory, cancer-promoting agents. Keywords Cytokines Á Malignant ascites Á Ovarian cancer Á Undifferentiated tumors Introduction Heterogenous nature of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) allows to divide these tumors into two categories, type I and type II, that differ remarkably in terms of their origin, genetic profile and progression rate. Type I includes low- grade serous, endometrioid, mucinous, malignant Brenner and clear-cell carcinoma which derive from ovaries, are genetically stable and progress slowly. Type II contains high-grade serous, carcinosarcoma and undifferentiated cancer which have non-ovarian origin, evolve rapidly and display high aggressiveness and mortality [1]. Despite this multiplicity of EOC subgroups, translating to broad differ- ences of diagnostic and therapeutic nature, the knowledge & Krzysztof Ksia ˛ _ zek kksiazek@ump.edu.pl Justyna Mikula-Pietrasik jmikula@ump.edu.pl Pawel Uruski puruski@ump.edu.pl Sebastian Szubert szuberts@o2.pl Rafal Moszyn ´ski rafalmoszynski@gmail.com Dariusz Szpurek dszpurek@gmail.com Stefan Sajdak ssajdak@ump.edu.pl Andrzej Tykarski tykarski@o2.pl 1 Department of Hypertensiology, Angiology and Internal Medicine, Poznan ´ University of Medical Sciences, Dluga 1/2 Str, 61-848 Poznan, Poland 2 Division of Gynecological Surgery, Poznan ´ University of Medical Sciences, Polna 33 Str, 60-535 Poznan, Poland 123 Med Oncol (2016) 33:94 DOI 10.1007/s12032-016-0810-4