The Study Of WWOX Expression In Patients With Extrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma

Object: To evaluate the clinico- pathological significance of WW domain-containing oxidoreductase messenger RNA and the protein expression in human extrahepatic cholangiocacinoma(ECC).Method: The clinicopatholigical significance of WWOXmRNA expression in 21 patients with extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and 5 cases of nomal bile duct tissue was examined. The WWOXmRNA expression in extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and normal bile duct tissue was determined using RealTime reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction analysis. The WWOX protein expression in extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and normal bile duct tissue was determined using immunohistochemical staining.Result: Expression of WWOX messenger RNA and the protein was lower in tumor tissue than in the normal bile duct tissue ,and loss of messenger RNA was observed in 47% of cases (t=10.145, P<0.001).Loss of WWOX protein expression was found in 57% of ECC adenocarinoma primary specimens. Both of the messenger RNA expression and the protein expression has a significance of correlation with histological grading, coefficient correlation is -0.583 and -0.840 respectively,while has no correlation with other clinicopathological factors such as age,sex,clinical stage or the status of hepatic function in preoperation. The expression of messenger RNA and the protein was significant lower in poorer differentiated ECC than moderate differentiated or well differentiated cases.Conclusion: Alterations of the WWOX gent may be involved quite frequently in cholangiocarcinoma tumorigenesis. Reduced expression of WWOX is associated with the histological grade of ECC and may therefore prove to be a useful marker for predicting the biological aggressiveness of human ECC. The data could be used in future studies to develop diagnostic and targeted therapy of bile duct cancer.