Clinical significance of mTOR and p-mTOR protein expression in human colorectal carcinomas.

Aim: To investigate the significance of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and its active form, p-mTOR in colorectal carcinomas.

Methods: Immunohistochemistry was used to detect the expression of mTOR and p-mTOR proteins in 108, 40 and 40 tissue samples from colorectal carcinoma, normal colonic mucosa and adenomatous polyps samples, respectively. The correlation of mTOR and p-mTOR expression with clinicopathological characteristics of colorectal carcinoma was analyzed.