Multiple cells of origin in cholangiocarcinoma underlie biological, epidemiological and clinical heterogeneity

Figure 1 Schematic diagram of the cell-lineages-of-origin and relative cells-of-origin within and of the related cholangiocarcinoma subtypes. Cells belonging from human hepatic stem cell (hHpSC) lineage or from biliary tree stem/progenitor cell (BTSC) lineage are retained cells of origin of different intrahepatic (IH)- and extrahepatic (EH)-cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) subtypes recently described[17,18,58]. Histology, grossly, the main clinical features and the associated diseases of the CCAs arising within the two cell lineages are showed respectively. HCC: Hepatocarcinoma; CLC: Cholangiolocarcinoma.