We thus chose the SKOV-3 cell line as a representative example of a large proportion of the ovarian cancer cell lines (medium-to-high MFGE8, detectable ITGB3 and ITGB5), and one susceptible to respond to MFGE8 since it expressed the known receptors for MFGE8, to develop the functional in vitro assays. The gene discussed is MFGE8; the disease is ovarian carcinoma.