ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>This study aimed to investigate the effects of gene polymorphism of heat shock protein 70-2 (HSP 70-2) 1267A/G on the mRNA level HSP 70-2 mRNA and the protein level HSP 70 in human lung cancer.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Forty six lung cancer patients diagnosed histopathologically between February and August 2008 from a hospital in zhengzhou were enrolled as the subjects in this study. Gene polymorphism of HSP 70-2 1276A/G in 46 patients with lung cancer was detected by PCR-RFLP. The mRNA levels of HSP 70-2 mRNA and the protein levels of HSP 70 in lung tissue and para-cancerous tissues of these subjects were determined by RT-PCR and Western blotting respectively.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The expression levels of HSP 70-2 mRNA (1.02 ± 0.30) and HSP 70 protein (0.44 ± 0.12) in the lung cancer tissues was significantly higher than that in para-cancerous tissues (0.19 ± 0.04, 0.12 ± 0.02). The relative levels of HSP 70-2 mRNA in the subjects with AA genotype (1.32 ± 0.22) were significantly higher than the patients with AG genotype or GG genotype (0.95 ± 0.17, 0.70 ± 0.16) at the site of 1267 (A/G) (P < 0.01); however, the relative protein levels of HSP 70 were 0.47 ± 0.13 (AA genotype), 0.42 ± 0.11 (AG genotype), 0.45 ± 0.11 (GG genotype), respectively, which showed no statistically significant difference (P > 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The polymorphism of HSP 70-2 1267 (A/G) is highly associated with the transcription level of HSP 70-2 mRNA, but not with the expression level of HSP 70 protein.</p>