Alpha-B-crystallin expression in human laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma tissues.

BACKGROUND Laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), being an aggressive malignancy, is one of the most commonly diagnosed malignant types of head and neck SCC worldwide. The recent studies suggested that αB-crystallin might play an important role in tumorigenesis. The purpose of this study was to investigate the αB-crystallin expression level in metastatic and nonmetastatic laryngeal SCC tissues and to determine its prognostic significance. METHODS Alpha-B-crystallin expression status in metastatic, nonmetastatic laryngeal SCC, and normal tissue samples was investigated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). RESULTS We demonstrated that the expression of αB-crystallin was significantly upregulated in laryngeal SCC tumor tissue samples in comparison with the corresponding normal tissues (p < .001), although no significant association has been found between αB-crystallin expression and either the metastatic potential or the T classification of the specimens. CONCLUSION Although expression of αB-crystallin is not statistically correlated with neck metastases, we demonstrated that αB-crystallin is significantly overexpressed in laryngeal cancer.