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Augmented expression of members of the heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) family are frequently observed in various human cancers. In this study, we examined applicability of laser scanning cytometer (LSC) to evaluate the level of Hsp72, which is the member constitutively expressed and significantly induced after heat shock, in human tumour cell lines. The relative nuclear content of Hsp72 measured by LSC correlated well with the relative intracellular content determined by Western blotting (R = 0.906). Furthermore, there was a close relationship between the relative nuclear content of Hsp72 measured by LSC and the colony-forming ability in soft agar, one of the malignant characteristics of tumour cells (R = 0.880). These results indicate that LSC measurement is useful for predicting the degree of malignancy of cancer cells, as it is reliable, faster than Western blotting and more objective and quantitative than visual measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]