There is increasing evidence that Special AT-rich sequence-binding protein 1 (SATB1) is aberrantly expressed in several cancers and is correlated with clinicopathologic parameters in these tumors. In this study, we showed over-expression of SATB1 in 80 cases of colorectal cancer and in 3 colorectal cancer cell lines and found expression levels were strongly associated with tumor differentiation and stage. Expression levels of SATB1 protein were higher in poorly-differentiated as compared with well-differentiated cell lines, and both quantity and distribution patterns of SATB1 were associated with tumor differentiation and pTNM stage. Strikingly, we further investigated the effect of down regulation of SATB1 expression on malignant phenotypic features in colorectal cancer cells in vitro, and showed that SABT1 down-regulation negatively affected growth potential, anchorage-independent colony formation and cancer cell invasion, and resulted in increased apoptosis. SATB1 expression was positively associated with the expression of various biological and genetic markers, including Cyclin D1, MMP-2, NF-κB, and PCNA, and was associated with loss of APC and BRAF(V600E). These findings suggest that SATB1 is involved in the carcinogenesis, development and progression of colorectal cancer.