Objective To investigate the expression level of ubiquitinated carboxy-terminal hydrolase 37 (UCH37) in colon cancer tissues and its clinical significance, and analyze the effects of UCH37 on the proliferation, migration of human colon cancer cells.

Methods Immunohistochemistry, Western blotting, and RT-qPCR were used to detect the expression level of UCH37 in human colon cancer tissue samples. The EDU proliferation assay, plate clonogenicity assay, flow cytometry and cell scratch assay were used to detected the effects of UCH37 on proliferation, clone-forming ability, cell cycle and migration of RKO cells, respectively. The Western blotting was used to detect the effects of UCH37 gene silencing on the expression levels of TGF-β1, Smad2, Smad3, P-Smad2 and P-Smad3.

Results After the expression of UCH37 was suppressed in RKO cells of colon cancer, the proliferation ability of RKO cells was inhibited, the cell cloning ability was weakened, the cell migration ability was also inhibited, the proportion of G0/G1 phase cells significantly increased, and the TGF-β1/Smad2/Smad3 pathway was activated (P ＜ 0.05 to P ＜ 0.01).

Conclusions UCH37 is highly expressed in colon cancer tissues. After silencing the UCH37 mRNA and protein in RKO cells of human colon cancer, the cell proliferation and migration ability decrease, the cell cycle is blocked in G0/G1 phase, and TGF-β1/Smads signaling pathway is activated.