Increased expression of HSP27 inhibits invasion and metastasis in human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Previous studies have indicated that heat shock protein 27 (HSP27) had high correlation with the development and progression in several tumors. However, the roles of HSP27 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) were uncertain. The aim in this study is to investigate the potential roles of HSP27 in the metastasis of ESCC. The expression of HSP27 in ESCC tissues and four human esophageal cancer cell lines were examined by immunohistochemistry and Western blotting, respectively. Wound healing assays, transwell assays, and in vivo assays were used to identify the differences of metastasis potential between normal and HSP27 overexpressed cells. HSP27 expression was downregulated in cancer tissue compared to the matched normal tissue. And the positive staining was mainly located in the cytoplasm. Statistical analyses showed that the expression of HSP27 in ESCC was significantly correlated with the tumor differentiation (P = 0.023), the patient's TNM stage (P = 0.013), lymph metastasis (P = 0.020), and distant metastasis (P = 0.017). HSP27 expression was significantly lower in highly metastatic cells than the less ones. The metastatic potentials of EC9706-H and EC109-H cells were higher than EC9706-L and EC109-L cells. In vitro and in vivo assays showed that overexpression of HSP27 in highly metastatic cells dramatically decreased their metastatic capacity. This study indicated that the expression level of HSP27 may be inversely correlated with the metastasis behavior of ESCC, and HSP27 may play an important role in this progression. HSP27 may be a potential molecular target for the therapy and prognosis of patients with ESCC.

HSP47 is associated with the prognosis of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma by inhibiting cell viability and invasion and promoting apoptosis

“…HSP27 has been reported to be overexpressed and associated with poor prognosis in many human cancers, including breast, rectal, gastric, lung, liver and prostate cancers (33)(34)(35)(36). Contrary to the findings in most cancers, in human esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (HESCC), the expression of HSP27 was low, and this low expression was correlated with poor prognosis (37,38).…”

Proteomic Characterization Reveals a Molecular Portrait of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Differentiation

“…It was reported to be associated with higher differentiation in squamous carcinomas of the uterine cervix and oral epithelium 26. Expression of HSPB1 also correlated with tumor differentiation in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma 27. HSPB1 has been reported as a radioresistance-related protein in the NPC cell lines, inhibition of which enhanced radiosensitivity 28.…”

HSPB1 rs2070804 polymorphism is associated with the depth of primary tumor

“…GWAS can be conducted using sets of SNPs that tag the most widely known common variants in the genome and scan for associations independent of a gene's function or chromosomal position. [8][9][10][11][12] So far, close relationship of HSP27 with cancers has been found in breast cancer, 13,14 esophageal cancer, 15,16 CRC, 17 head and neck cancer, 18 and other solid tumors. This genomic region was noted for prostate cancer, through a linkage study followed-up by an association study and independently through an admixture scan in African Americans.…”