Abstract: purpose： To investigate the effects of adverse psychological stress on p53 and VEGF protein levels in serum and xenograft of SKOV3 tumor-bearing nude mice. Methods: The adverse psychological stress model of nude mice bearing ovarian cancer were established, the levels of P53, VEGF in serum were detected by ELISA in normal control, simple stress, simple tumor and tumor-bearing stress group, immunohistochemistry and Western Blot were performed to detect the expression of P53, VEGF protein for xenografts in the tumor group and tumor-bearing stress group. Results : The levels of P53 and VEGF in serum of stress groups were higher than those in corresponding group that not subjected to stress, the differences were significant (P <0.05). Western Blot showed that the average density value ratio of P53 and VEGF in tumor-bearing stress group were 2.163 ± 0.072 and 2.523 ± 0.088, respectively, while those in simple tumor group were 1.116 ± 0.068 and 1.477 ± 0.083, respectively, the differences were significant (P <0.01).The results of immunohistochemistry showed that P53 protein in tumor-bearing stress group (n = 32) and tumor group (n = 24) positive expression rates were 87.5% and 62.5%, while VEGF protein were 93.8% and 70.8%, the differences were significant (P<0.05). Conclusion: adverse psychological stress may accelerate the progress of SKOV3 tumor, the expression of P53 and VEGF may be concerned in the mechanism; P53 and VEGF are expected to become the molecular targets for psycho-oncology study.

Key words: epithelial ovarian cancer, psychological stress, P53, VEGF, immunohistochemistry