Objective To explore the role of nucleostemin in renal carcinogenesis. Methods The 62 cases of surgically resected renal cell carcinoma (RCC) tissues were collected, including 50 cases of clear cell type, and 12 cases of granular cell type, Meanwhile, 10 cases of adjacent normal tissues and 10 cases of normal renal tissues were obtained as control group. Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect the nucleostemin mRNA. GAPDH served as the internal reference.Results The positive rate of nucleostemin in RCC tissues was 75. 81% (47/62), but no expression of nucleostemin gene was detectable in the renal tubular epithelia of normal renal tissues (0/20). Nucleostemin gene expression in RCC tissues was significantly higher than that in normal renal tissues (P 0. 05 ). Conclusion Nucleostemin gene was overexpressed in RCC, but no expression was found in normal renal tissues. The expression of nucleostemin gene had no correlation with pathological types. It was revealed that nucleostemin gene activation and expression was related to the carcinogenesis of RCC closely. Key words: Renal cell carcinoma; Gene expression; Nucleostemin