Abstract: Ovarian cancer is one of the common malignant tumors in women, with high malignancy and poor prognosis. The current chemotherapy strategy for treating ovarian cancer patients is based on a combination of platinum and paclitaxel. Although most ovarian cancer patients are sensitive to chemotherapy, many initial responders eventually develop chemotherapy resistance. Previous studies have suggested that oncogene activation and tumor suppressor gene inactivation are mainly DNA sequence changes caused by gene mutations and deletions. However, existing studies have shown that many important tumor genes are not mutated or deleted. Gene expression abnormalities are mainly achieved by DNA methylation, DNA methylation and other epigenetic modifications may be reversible. This makes epigenetic factors a candidate for disease prevention and regaining sensitivity to chemotherapeutic drugs. Numerous studies have also confirmed differential expression of DNA methylation levels in drug-resistant and sensitive ovarian cancer cells. DNA methylase inhibitors have also been used to inhibit DNA methylation in order to reverse the resistance of ovarian cancer cells. The relationship between DNA methylation and ovarian cancer resistance is reviewed in this article.

Key words: DNA methylation, Ovarian neoplasms, Drug resistance, neoplasm, Epigenesis, genetic, Epigenetic, Therapy