Expression of survivin protein in human colorectal carcinogenesis

AM: To identify the role of survivin in colorectal carcinogenesis and the relationship between Survivin and histological differentiation grade of colorectal carcinoma. METHODS: Immunohistochemical staining of survivin by using the monoclonal antibody was performed by the standard streptavidin-peroxidase (SP) technique for the 188 paraffin sections which included 30 normal colorectal mucosas, 41 adenomas with low grade dysplasia, 30 adenomas with high grade dysplasia, and 87 colorectal carcinomas which were classified as high, middle and low differentiated subgroups which included 33, 28, 26 cases respectively. RESULTS: Expression of survivin was observed in the cytoplasm of adenoma with dysplasia and colorectal carcinoma cells. No immunoreactivity of survivin was seen in normal mucosas. The positive rate of survivin increased in the transition from normal mucosas to adenomas with low grade dysplasia to high grade dysplasia/carcinomas (0.0 %, 31.7 %, 56.7 % and 63.2% respectively). But the difference between high grade dysplasia and carcinomas had no statistical sighificance. Positive rate was not related to histological differentiation grade of colorectal carcinoma. Moreover, there was no correlation between histological differentiation grade of colorectal carcinoma and immunoreactive intensity of survivin. CONCLUSION: The expression of survivin is the essential event in the early stage of colorectal carcinogenesis and plays an important role in the transition sequence and it is not related to histological differentiation grade of colorectal carcinoma. It thus may provide a new diagnostic and therapeutic target in colorectal cancer.