Objective: To investigate the expression and significance of Glypican-3 in colorectal cancer.
Methods: Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of Glypican-3 in 200 specimens of colorectal cancer and adjacent non-cancerous tissues resected during operation.
Results: Glypican-3 immunoreactivity was recognized in both the cytoplasm and cellular membrane. The Glypican-3 positive expression rate in the tumor samples was 66.0% (132/200), significantly higher than that in the adjacent nontumor tissues (24%, 48/200, P = 0.019). The Glypican-3 expression rate was significantly correlated with the carcinoma invasion (P = 0.023) and lymph node metastasis (P = 0.015), but not associated with gender, age, tumor size, and differentiation grade (all P > 0.05).
Conclusion: Over-expression of Glypican-3 may play an important role in the genesis and development of colorectal cancer, and may be used as a new biological parameter in predicting invasion and metastasis of colorectal carcinoma.