Abstract
Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a malignant transformation of biliary epithelial cells. It is a slow growing tumor, but is also highly metastatic with a poor prognosis. Bile acids are known to transactivate the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in cholangiocytes and induce cyclooxygenase-2 expression. The protein expression profiles of bile acid-treated CCA cells were studied using a proteomic approach. To elucidate the possible mechanisms involved in the bile acid-mediated enhancement of CCA cell migration, the effects of six bile acids, including cholic, deoxycholic, taurocholic, taurodeoxycholic, glycocholic and glycodeoxycholic acid, on the migration of CCA cells were examined in vitro using wound healing assays. Subsequently, the possible proteins involved in enhanced CCA cell migration were investigated using a proteomic approach. Changes to the protein expression profiles of CCA cells following bile acid treatment was examined using two-dimensional electrophoresis and mass spectrometry. The results demonstrated that cholic and deoxycholic acid significantly enhanced the migration of CCA cells, compared with the treated MMNK-1 control cells. CCA cells had 77 overexpressed protein spots following cholic acid treatment, and 50 protein spots following deoxycholic acid treatment, compared with the treated MMNK-1 control cells. Liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometry analysis revealed that coiled-coil domain containing 25 (CCDC25) was significantly overexpressed in cholic acid-treated CCA cells compared with in cholic acid-treated control cells. When the expression levels of CCDC25 were investigated using western blot analysis, CCDC25 was demonstrated to be highly expressed in CCA tissues, but not in the adjacent non-cancerous tissue samples. The identified proteins were further analyzed for protein-chemical interactions using STITCH version 3.1 software. CCDC25 protein was identified to be associated with Son of sevenless homolog 1 and growth factor receptor-bound protein 2, which are involved in EGFR signaling. The results of the present study demonstrated that following cholic acid treatment, CCDC25 is overexpressed in CCA cells, which is associated with significantly enhanced cell migration. This suggests that CCDC25 is a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of patients with CCA.