Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 7, 2017; 23(13): 2318-2329
Published online Apr 7, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i13.2318
Cullin 4A is associated with epithelial to mesenchymal transition and poor prognosis in perihilar cholangiocarcinoma
Tong-Jun Zhang, Dong Xue, Cheng-De Zhang, Ze-Dong Zhang, Qing-Ran Liu, Jian-Qiang Wang
Tong-Jun Zhang, Cheng-De Zhang, Ze-Dong Zhang, Qing-Ran Liu, Department of Interventional Vascular Surgery, The People’s Hospital of Binzhou, Binzhou 256610, Shandong Province, China
Dong Xue, Jian-Qiang Wang, Department of General Surgery, The People’s Hospital of Binzhou, Binzhou 256610, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Zhang TJ, Xue D, Zhang CD, Zhang ZD, Liu QR, and Wang JQ substantially contributed to the conception and design of the study as well as the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of the data; all authors drafted the article and made critical revisions related to the intellectual content of the manuscript, and approved the final version of the article to be published.
Institutional review board statement: All perihilar cholangiocarcinoma specimens from the patients were taken after informed consent and ethical permission were obtained for participation in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: To the best of our knowledge, no conflict of interest exists.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dong Xue, MD, PhD, Department of General Surgery, The People’s Hospital of Binzhou, No. 515, Seventh Huanghe Road, Binzhou 256610, Shandong Province, China. xdbzsurgeon@163.com
Telephone: +86-54-33283293 Fax: +86-54-33282503
Received: November 15, 2016
Peer-review started: November 17, 2016
First decision: December 19, 2016
Revised: January 5, 2017
Accepted: March 2, 2017
Article in press: March 2, 2017
Published online: April 7, 2017
Processing time: 141 Days and 21.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Cullin 4A (CUL4A), a core subunit of E3 ubiquitin ligase, was confirmed to promote the metastasis and the epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) in perihilar cholangiocarcinoma (PHCC) in the present study. High CUL4A expression was revealed to be correlated with poor overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) of PHCC patients. CUL4A expression was detected to be the only independent risk factor for OS and PFS in PHCC. Mechanistically, ZEB1 was verified to mediate the function of CUL4A in regulating PHCC metastasis and the EMT.