Yang XQ, Xu YF, Guo S, Liu Y, Ning SL, Lu XF, Yang H, Chen YX. Clinical significance of nerve growth factor and tropomyosin-receptor-kinase signaling pathway in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. World J Gastroenterol 2014; 20(14): 4076-4084 [PMID: 24744599 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i14.4076]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Yu-Xin Chen, Professor, Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, 44 Wenhuaxi Road, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China. cyxsdu2012@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Evidence-Based Medicine
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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World J Gastroenterol. Apr 14, 2014; 20(14): 4076-4084 Published online Apr 14, 2014. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i14.4076
Clinical significance of nerve growth factor and tropomyosin-receptor-kinase signaling pathway in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
Xiao-Qing Yang, Yun-Fei Xu, Sen Guo, Yi Liu, Shang-Lei Ning, Xiao-Fei Lu, Hui Yang, Yu-Xin Chen
Xiao-Qing Yang, Yun-Fei Xu, Sen Guo, Yi Liu, Shang-Lei Ning, Hui Yang, Yu-Xin Chen, Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China
Xiao-Qing Yang, Department of Pathology, Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China
Xiao-Fei Lu, Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Central Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Yang XQ and Xu YF contributed equally to this work; Xu YF, Guo S, Liu Y, Ning SL, Lu XF, Yang H and Chen YX designed research; Yang XQ performed the IHC and follow-up; Xu YF performed the in vitro experiments; Xu YF and Yang XQ analyzed data; Xu YF and Chen YX wrote the paper.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81172044
Correspondence to: Yu-Xin Chen, Professor, Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, 44 Wenhuaxi Road, Jinan 250012, Shandong Province, China. cyxsdu2012@163.com
Received: December 17, 2013 Revised: February 25, 2014 Accepted: March 19, 2014 Published online: April 14, 2014
Core Tip
Core tip: For the first time, we systemically investigated nerve growth factor (NGF) and tropomyosin-receptor-kinase (TrkA) expression in 83 intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma(IHCC) samples by immunohistochemistry, and then analyzed the expression relationship with clinicopathological features, which resulted in finding that NGF and TrkA were significantly associated with differentiation (P = 0.024) and intraneural invasion (P = 0.003) respectively. Moreover, we found that NGF and TrkA double higher expression had poorer prognosis than others. NGF-TrkA double higher expression was further confirmed as an independent prognostic factor by multivariate analysis. With function assays we demonstrated that NGF-TrkA signaling pathway played a crucial role in cholangiocarcinoma proliferation and invasion, indicating NGF-TrkA pathway could be a promising potential drug target of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma.
