Objective Previous studies have reported that survivin expression is significantly associated with various malignancies including bladder cancer. However, the relationship between the expression of survivin and the tumor stage and grade of bladder cancer still require further study. Methods To determine whether survivin plays a role in the differentiation of bladder cancer cells, we conducted a preliminary study to examine the expression of survivin in bladder cancer cell lines. Results In this study, we observed that the gene expression fold changes of survivin ranged from 3.2 to 16.7 in various tumor grades (G1–G4) of bladder cancer cell lines, which were higher than that in normal human urothelial cell line. With the worse differentiation of bladder cancer cell lines, the gene expression fold changes of survivin increased significantly (3.2-fold in RT4, 5.8-fold in 5637, 6.6-fold in T24, and 16.7-fold in HT1197). In addition, we observed different genotypes among various cell lines (C/C in HUC4449, C/G in RT4, C/G in 5637, G/G in T24, and C/C in HT1197). The relationship between survivin −31 C/G polymorphism and various bladder cancer cell lines was non-significant. However, the overexpression of survivin may be associated with aggressive features of bladder cancer. Conclusion Our findings suggest that survivin could be a potential therapeutic target through the inhibition of cell proliferation in bladder cancer.
