Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most prevalent cause of cancer-related deaths in the Western world. 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) is a standard chemotherapeutic drug to treat CRC. However, the response rate is less than 20% and patients who have responded to 5-FU may become resistant. Therefore there is an urgent need to examine the 5-FU response proteins so that patients with no response to 5-FU can change to other treatment strategies promptly. In this study, the proteomic expression profile in a CRC cell line SW480 before and after 5-FU treatment was examined using 2-dimensional electrophoresis technology. Fourteen proteins with differential expression were identified using mass spectrometry and 7 of them were validated using immunocytochemical (ICC) staining. Protein identification indicated that cyclophilin A, cytokeratin 19 (CK19), cytokeratin 8 (CK8), ras-related nuclear protein, heat shock protein 27 (hsp27) and peroxiredoxin 6 (Prx 6) were upregulated whereas heat shock protein 60 (hsp60), cytokeratin 18 (CK18), cytokeratin 9 (CK9), carbamoylphosphate synthetase I, α-enolase, heat shock protein 70 (hsp70), nm23 and β-actin were down-regulated. Seven of the 14 proteins detected were validated by ICC staining, which showed that the expression of hsp27, Prx 6 and hsp70 correlated with that from proteomics profiling. Our results suggest that hsp27, Prx 6 and hsp70 are potential 5-FU response proteins and they may represent potential targets for further evaluation in other 5-FU-sensitive and -resistant CRC cell lines.

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