Introduction: Cholesterol has been implicated in ovarian cancer progression. PEO1, PEO4, and PEO6 ovarian cancer cell lines represent early, first recurrence, and late stage of the disease. We studied the impact of varying concentrations of cholesterol on cell migration and viability at different stages of disease.

Methods: To assess cell migration, a wound healing assay was performed on cell lines treated with cholesterol (1 µg and 5 µg). The alteration in wound opening was measured over 48hrs for PEO1 and PEO4, and 72hrs for PEO6 using microscopy and image analysis software. Cell viability assays were conducted to evaluate the effects of cholesterol on cell survival. Statistical analyses were performed to determine the significance of observed changes in both cell migration and viability.

Results: Treatments with cholesterol at concentrations of 1 µg and 5 µg induced statistically significant decrease in relative wound opening (i.e., increased cell migration) across all three cell lines. At 5 µg of cholesterol, PEO1, PEO4, and PEO6 demonstrated a 50%, 20%, and 30% decrease in relative wound opening compared to the control, respectively. At 5 µg, the cell viability of the PEO1, PEO4, and PEO6 cell lines increased by 50%, 100%, and 40%, respectively; a similar trend was observed with 1 µg of cholesterol.

Conclusions: A high cholesterol environment promotes cell migration and viability to different extent depending on disease stage. This highlights the role of cholesterol in tumour progression in ovarian cancer. Future experiments will explore how cholesterol impacts the activation of specific biomarkers associated with tumour progression and response to therapy.