Objective: To investigate the expressions of HSF1 and tetra-hydroxynonene (4-HNE) in prostate cancer (PCa) tissue and their clinical significance.
Methods: Using the immunohistochemical method, we detected the expressions of HSF1 and 4-HNE in the prostatic tissues of 50 cases of PCa and another 50 cases of BPH, and analyzed the relationship of the two expressions with Gleason grade.
Results: The positive expression level of HSF1 was dramatically higher in the highly, moderately and lowly differentiated PCa than in the BPH tissue (37.5%, 50.0% and 75.0% vs 4.0%, P = 0.001) and showed statistically significant difference among different Gleason grades (P = 0.025), so was that of 4-HNE (81.3%, 92.9% and 100.0% % vs 6.0%, P = 0.001), also with statistically significant difference among different Gleason grades (P = 0.029). There was a positive correlation between the expression of HSF1 and that of 4-HNE in the PCa tissue (r = 0.947, P = 0.001).
Conclusions: The overexpressions of HSF1 and 4-HNE are related to the Gleason grades of prostate cancer, which can be used as an new biological marker with important reference value for assessing the malignancy of prostate cancer.
Keywords: 4-hydroxynonenal; heat shock transcription factor 1; immunohistochemistry; prostate cancer.