Increased expression of L-selectin (CD62L) in high-grade urothelial carcinoma: A potential marker for metastatic disease.

•Currently, there are no defined tumor markers capable of stratifying bladder cancer patients with respect to risk for, or the presence of metastasis.•Microarray data from laser captured, micro-dissected human specimens of high grade muscle invasive (MIBC) vs. low grade (LGBC) bladder cancers found L-selectin (CD62L) to be the highest differentially expressed gene.•CD62L is a vascular adhesion molecule that is primarily expressed on leucocytes. Its principal function is to direct leucocyte migration and homing to lymph nodes (LNs). It is unusual to find CD62L expression in solid carcinomas.•This study shows; increased expression at transcript and protein level in muscle invasive bladder cancer with localization seen in LNs from patients with metastatic disease. Additionally, CD62L positive cells were more abundant in freshly isolated tumor samples from patients with metastasis.•Our findings are the first report of increased expression of CD62L in MIBC and suggest a role of CD62L in metastatic spread to LNs.