Background: The aquaporins (AQPs) are a family of small membrane transport proteins whose overexpression has been implicated in tumorigenesis. However, the expression of AQP5 and AQP8 in colorectal cancer and the clinical significance remain unexplored. This study aimed to detect the expression of AQP5 and AQP8 in clinical samples of colorectal cancer and analyze the correlations of their expression with the clinicopathological features of colorectal cancer.
Methods: Forty pairs of colorectal cancer tissue and paraneoplastic normal tissue were obtained at the time of surgery from patients with colorectal cancer. The expression of AQP5 and AQP8 was detected by immunohistochemical staining and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction.
Results: AQP5 was mainly expressed in colorectal carcinoma cells and barely expressed in paraneoplastic normal tissues. By contrast, AQP8 was mainly expressed in paraneoplastic normal tissues and barely expressed in colorectal carcinoma cells. AQP5 expression was not significantly associated with the sex or age of the patient with colorectal cancer (P>0.05), but was closely associated with the differentiation, tumor-nodes-metastasis stage and distant lymph node metastasis of colorectal carcinoma (P<0.05).
Conclusions: AQP5 might be a novel prognostic biomarker for patients with colorectal cancer.