Systemic evaluation of total Stat3 and Stat3 tyrosine phosphorylation in normal human tissues

Stat3 plays important roles in many biological phenomena including cell survival, growth, proliferation, differentiation and cancer malignancies. As Stat3 emerges as a new therapeutic target for treatment of cancers in which the Stat3 is constitutively activated, the overall evaluation of basal expression of Stat3 and phosphorylated Stat3 at tyrosine residue 705 in human tissues would be very important and informative. We took a pilot study to examine the expression patterns of total Stat3 and phosphorylated Stat3 protein (p-Stat3) using immunohistochemistry in 47 different adult normal human tissues of 10 organ systems. Immunohistochemistry showed that total Stat3 protein was almost universally detected in all tissues except peripheral nerve. Interestingly, majorities of tissues showed to have moderate to high expression levels of total Stat3 protein. Several heart tissues displayed a unique perinuclear immunostaining for both Stat3 and p-Stat3, most likely in Golgi complexes. Based on the cell types, the p-Stat3 was also expressed in glandular, secretory, mucosal epithelial, circulatory endothelial, lymphoid, proliferative, and reabsorption-active cells.