Potential biologic markers of cholangiocarcinoma

Dr. Hong-Yang Wang and his colleagues confirmed that reduced or absent expressions of E-cadherin and P120 were shown to be associated with the tumor histological grade. And their expression significantly associated with tumor pTNM stage, intrahepatic metastasis and patients' survival. Therefore, both of them could serve as potential diagnostic and prognostic markers of ICCs.

This study, is described in a research published on 21 June 2008, in the World Journal of Gastroenterology. Performed by a team led by Dr. HY Wang.P120-catenin is a member of the Armadillo (ARM)/ß-catenin gene familyand is essential for mesenchymal cadherin-mediated regulation of cell motility and invasiveness. A main function of P120 is to stabilize cadherins at the cell membrane by regulating cadherin turnover and degradation. In this way, P120 levels act as a set point mechanism that tunes cell-cell adhesive interactions. Several reports had suggested that abnormal expression of P120 occurred in various of tumors, but no one navigated the role of P120 in the progress and development of ICCs.

An immunohistochemical study for E-cadherin and P120 catenin was performed in 42 specimens of human ICCs with Dako Envision Kit. Their study suggested that reduced or absent expressions of E-cadherin and P120 were shown to be associated with the tumor histological grade. In well differentiated tumors, there were obvious and strongly staining along cell-cell boundaries, whereas in poorly differentiated tumors, immunohistostaining patterns were focally and heterogeneously distributed, with patchy or spotty features along cell-cell boundaries. Thus, the staining of E-cadheri and P120 was related with the tumor differentiation of ICC. That's to say, both E-cadherin and P120 may be regarded as tumor differentiation markers. In addition, the staining strength of this complex gradually weakened from nontumoral tissue to tumor region, suggesting that P120 may play a critic role in ICC progression.

Additionally, this study suggested that the expression of P120 and E-cadherin significantly associated with tumor pTNM stage and intrahepatic metastasis. Therefore, E-cadherin and P120 may be important meditors in tumor progression and can be considered as invasion and metastasis markers of ICC.

Lastly, they also evaluated the relationship between the expression of E-cadherin/P120 and patients' survival and found that both reduced expression of E-cadherin and P120 were significantly related with the patients' survival. However, only the abnormal expression of P120 was found to be an independent prognostic factor. Thus, P120 could be considered as a valuable biological marker at predicting on patients' prognosis in ICCs.

Reference: Zhai B, Yan HX, Liu SQ, Chen L, Wu MC, Wang HY. Reduced expression of the P120 catenin in human intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma correlations with tumor clinicopathologic parameters and patients' survival. World J Gastroenol 2008; 14(23): 3739-3744
http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/14/3739.asp

Correspondence to: Hong-Yang Wang, International Cooperation Laboratory On Signal Transduction, Eastern Hepatobilliary Surgery Institute, Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200438, China. hywangk@online.sh.cn
Telephone: +86-21-25070846 Fax: +86-21-65566851

World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H pylori infection and provides a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2003-2000 IF: 3.318, 2.532, 1.445 and 0.993. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day of every month. WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the name of China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.

The WJG Press mainly publishes World Journal of Gastroenterology.