Opisthorchis viverrini is considered among the most important of the food-borne trematodes due to its strong association with advanced periductal fibrosis and bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma). We investigated the relationship between plasma levels of Interleukin (IL)-6 and the risk of developing advanced fibrosis and bile duct cancer from chronic Opisthorchis infection. We show that IL-6 circulates in plasma at concentrations 58 times higher in individuals with advanced fibrosis than age, sex, and nearest-neighbor matched controls and 221 times higher in individuals with bile duct cancer than controls. We also observed a dose-response relationship between increasing levels of plasma IL-6 and increasing risk of advanced fibrosis and bile duct cancer; for example, in age and sex adjusted analyses, individuals with the highest quartiles of plasma IL-6 had a 19 times greater risk of developing advanced periductal fibrosis and a 150 times greater risk of developing of bile duct cancer than individuals with no detectable level of plasma IL-6. Finally, we show that a single plasma IL-6 measurement has excellent positive predictive value for the detection of both advanced bile duct fibrosis and bile duct cancer in regions with high O. viverrini transmission. These data support our hypothesis that common mechanisms drive bile duct fibrosis and bile duct tumorogenesis from chronic O. viverrini infection. Our study also adds a unique aspect to the literature on circulating levels of IL-6 as an immune marker of hepatobiliary pathology by showing that high levels of circulating IL-6 in plasma are not related to infection with O. viverrini, but to the development of the advanced and often lethal pathologies resulting from chronic O. viverrini infection.

We show that common histologic grades and subtypes of ICC have distinct miRNA profiles. As histological grade and subtypes are associated with ICC aggressiveness, these profiles could be used to enhance the early detection and improve the personalised treatment for ICC. These findings also suggest the involvement of specific miRNAs during ICC tumour progression and differentiation. We plan to use these insights to (a) detect these profiles in circulation and (b) conduct functional analyses to decipher the roles of miRNAs in ICC tumour differentiation.

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Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), or cancer of the bile ducts, is primarily associated with infection with the liver fluke Opisthorchis viverrini in northeast Thailand. The disease . is associated with late presentation, poses challenges for diagnosis and has a high mortality rate – features that highlight the need for tumor markers. At present, there are no specific tumor markers that can indicate the early stages and status of CCA. Proteomic analysis of the proteins expressed on the surface of tumor cells is particularly difficult since proteome-wide analysis of surface membrane proteins has thus far been hampered by the lack of effective strategies to profile hydrophobic membrane proteins. In this study, a sequential protein extraction was utilized to overcome this problem. Membrane protein was extracted from four CCA cell lines with different tumor forming capabilities. The non-tumor H69 biliary cell line was used as a control. Two-dimensional-PAGE followed by MALDI-TOF-MS was used to identify differentially expressed proteins. Among 20 up-regulated membrane proteins identified in the CCA cell lines was ANXA2, a participant in tumor invasion and metastasis in other cancers. Accordingly, ANXA2 was verified in human subjects by probing, using a commercial anti-mouse monoclonal antibody and a tissue microarray of CCA (301 diagnosed cases), where it was found to associate with one of several tumor progression stages as reflected by lymphatic invasion (P = 0.014) and metastasis (P = 0.026). Patients with high expression of ANXA2 had a significantly shorter survival time (P = 0.011). ANXA2 expression in tumors may be useful for predicting the poor outcome of CCA patients.

ApoC1 may be a novel biomarker for AAA.

Summary We performed a comparative proteomic analysis of protein expression profiles in four cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) cell lines: K100, M156, M213, and M139. The H69 biliary cell line was used as a control. Peroxiredoxin 1 (PRX1) and ezrin-radixin-moesin-binding phosphoprotein 50 (EBP50) were selected for further validation by immunohistochemistry (IHC) using a CCA tissue microarray (n=301) to assess their prognostic value in this cancer. Both PRX1 and EBP50 were overexpressed in CCA tissues compared with normal liver tissues. Of the 301 CCA cases, overexpression of PRX1 in 103 (34.3%) was associated with an age-related effect in young patients (P = 0.011) and the absence of cholangiocarcinoma in lymphatic vessels and perineural tissues (P = 0.004 and P = 0.037, respectively). Expression of EBP50 correlated with histopathologic type, being higher in 180 (59.8%) of moderately or poorly differentiated tumors (P = 0.039) and was associated with the presence of cholangiocarcinoma in lymphatic and vascular vessels (P< 0.001 and P< 0.001, respectively). The high expression of EBP50 and the low expression of PRX1 correlated with reduced survival by univariate analysis (P = 0.017 and P = 0.048, respectively). Moreover, the impact of PRX1 and EBP50 expression on patient survival was an independent predictor in multivariate analyses (P = 0.004 and P = 0.025, respectively). Therefore, altered expression of PRX1 and EBP50 may be used as prognostic markers incholangiocarcinoma.

Objectives To investigate the association of expression status of α-enolase (ENO1) and clinicopathological outcomes of CCA patients. Design and methods Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and mass spectrometry (MS) were used to compare differential expressed protein profiles of four human CCA cell lines and H69, a non-malignant biliary cell line, as a control. Immunohistochemical analysis was carried out in tissue-microarray of human CCA tissues (n = 301). Results We identified ENO1 in all CCA cell lines but not H69 by proteomics based. About 75% of patients with CCA showed over-expression of ENO1 in hyperplastic bile duct and the tumors compared with that in tumor-adjacent normal tissue counterparts. Moreover, over-expression of ENO1 is significantly associated with poor prognosis and tumor invasion of CCA patients. Conclusions ENO1 may serve as a prognostic marker to monitor the disease progression of these patients.

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