%0 Journal Article
%@ 1479-5876
%A Cai, Xiaobo
%A Li, Jun
%A Yuan, Xiaodong
%A Xiao, Jingbo
%A Dooley, Steven
%A Wan, Xinjian
%A Weng, Honglei
%A Lu, Lungen
%C London
%D 2018
%F heidok:24316
%I BioMed Central
%J Journal of Translational Medicine
%N 50
%P 1-7
%T CD133 expression in cancer cells predicts poor prognosis of non-mucin producing intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma
%U https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/24316/
%V 16
%X Background; CD133 is a marker of stem cells as well cancer stem cells. This study investigated the association between CD133 expression in cancer cells and the clinical outcome of non-mucin producing intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC).    Methods: Fifty-seven non-mucin producing ICC patients were enrolled in this study. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunofluorescence staining for CD133 as well as other cancer-associated proteins, including cytokeratin 19, TGF-β1, p-Smad2 and epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers S100A4, E-Cadherin and Vimentin were analyzed.    Results: IHC staining showed that tumor cells in 52.6% of patients expressed CD133. The CD133+ patients had significantly higher metastasis rate than those without CD133+ tumor cells (36.7% vs. 10.1%, p = 0.03). The CD133+ patients had shorter overall and disease-free survival time as compared to the CD133− patients. Furthermore, 90.9% of CD133+ patients developed cancer recurrence, as compared to 64.3% of CD133− patients (p = 0.02). As compared to CD133− patients, tumor cells in CD133+ patients demonstrated high levels of TGF-β/p-Smad2 as well as EMT-like alteration, characterized by loss of E-Cadherin and expression of Vimentin and S100A4.    Conclusions: CD133 expression in ICC tumor cells indicates poor prognosis of the disease and might be associated with TGF-β related EMT alterations.