Objective: To investigate the expression of aquaporin-1 (AQP1) in nasopharyngeal tumour and nontumour tissues.
Method: Thirty nasopharyngeal biopsy samples were collected and examined with both immunohistochemistry and real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) to detect the expression level of AQP1 in tissues.
Results: Immunohistochemistry data suggested that AQP1 was expressed in both nasopharyngeal tumour and normal tissues, but tumour tissues were stained a lot stronger than nontumour tissues. RT-PCR analysis further confirmed the overexpression of AQP1 in tumour tissues; migrated tumour tissue had even higher expression.
Conclusion: The expression level of aquaporin-1 in nasopharyngeal cancer tissue could be involved in tumour migration.