Although is not clear why ovarian cancer cell lines are resistant to ATRA treatment, our study suggests that resistance to ATRA treatment is not dependent on RARA, ANXA2 or S100A10 expression as all of the serous ovarian cancer cell lines expressed similar mRNA levels of these genes (Additional file 3: Figure S1a). The gene discussed is S100A10; the disease is ovarian serous adenocarcinoma.