Objective: To investigate the relationship between heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) expression and lymphatic metastasis of colorectal carcinoma (CRC).
Methods: Immunohistochemistry was used to detect HSP27 expression in 68 specimens of human CRC. The expression of HSP27 mRNA and protein was also detected in two colorectal carcinoma cell lines with different lymphatic metastasis potentials by RT-PCR, Western blotting and immunohistochemistry.
Results: HSP27 expression was not related to such clinicopathological factors as the patient's age, gender, histological grade, lymphatic metastasis or clinical stages (P>0.05), but overexpression of HSP27 showed significant inverse correlation to lymphatic metastasis of CRC (P=0.035). HSP27 mRNA and protein were expressed at low levels in SW620 cells with high potentials for lymphatic metastasis, and at high levels in SW480 cells that had low lymphatic metastasis potentials.
Conclusion: HSP27 expression can be inversely correlated to metastatic behavior of CRC cells, and may play a role in suppressing the metastasis of CRC.