Table 1.

Selection of recent publications assessing HSP27 as a biomarker in cancers.

Sample type	Cancer type	Total number of samples	Assay	Finding/claim (References)
Biopsy	Prostate	97 patients	IHC	HSP27 expression level was significantly associated with Gleason score, but not with studied factors before radical prostatectomy (Miyake et al., 2006)
Tissue	Prostate	120 patients; 60 controls	IHC	The level of HSP27 expression was correlated with their Gleason grade and associated with poor clinical outcome (Cornford et al., 2000)
Tissue	Bladder	42 patients; 10 controls	IHC	No correlation between HSP27 expression and grade was found (Lebret et al., 2003)
Tissue	HCC	38 patients	IHC, DI	HSP27 expression increased with the progression of hepatitis B virus-related HCC (Lim et al., 2005)
Tissue	Prostate	193 patients	IHC	HSP27 expression significantly associated with several conventional prognostic factors (Miyake et al., 2010)
Serum	Breast	32 patients; 26 controls	ELISA	Higher levels of HSP27 released in the tumor microenvironment compared to serum levels of cancer patients (Banerjee et al., 2011)
Serum	Breast	76 patients; 54 controls	2-DE; MALDI–TOF–MS	HSP27 was up-regulated in the serum of breast cancer patients (Rui et al., 2003)
Serum	Ovarian	158 patients; 80 controls	ELISA	The mean concentration of anti-HSP27 antibodies was significantly higher than in the control group (Olejek et al., 2009)

Techniques are: 2-DE, two-dimensional gel electrophoresis; DI, dot immunoblot; ELISA, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, IHC, immunohistochemical analyses; MALDI–TOF–MS, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization – time-of-flight – mass spectrometry. HCC stands for hepatocellular carcinoma.