Abstract
Objective: The aim of the study is to investigate possible mutations in heat shock cognate 70 gene (HSC70) in colorectal cancer. Materials and Methods: DNA was extracted from frozen tissue sections of 10 colorectal cancers and peripheral blood cells of 10 healthy people. The exons of HSC70 were PCR-amplified with 4 pairs of primers. The PCR products were run along a 1.5% agarose gel containing ethidium bromide and visualised under UV illumination. The PCR products were purified from the gel and direct-sequenced. The sequences were analysed according to GenBank access number Y00371. Results: Ten genetic alterations were found, and 6 were novel findings. Nine of them occurred both in colorectal cancer and healthy subjects, indicating polymorphisms. The remaining one, D6, found only in two colorectal cancers (20%), occurred at sequence 3252 in exon 6, but this sequence change did not alter the reading frame of HSC70 because of the third position wobble in codon 423. Conclusions: In the present study no significant genetic alterations were found in HSC70 for colorectal cancer; however several novel polymorphisms found only in this study demonstrated genomic differences between Asian and Western populations.