The Clinicopathological and Prognostic Impact of 14-3-3 Protein Isoforms Expression in Human Cholangiocarcinoma by Immunohistochemistry

The 14-3-3 proteins are highly conserved, ubiquitous molecules involved in a variety of biologic phenomena, such as cell cycle control, and apoptosis. However, their expression in cholangiocarcinoma has not been previously characterized. In this paper, immunohistochemistry using specific anti-14-3-3 monoclonal antibodies was performed on formalin-fixed;, paraffin embedded archival tissue from 86 patients of cholangiocarcinoma. We also examined the correlation between expression and survival rate and clinicopathologic factors such as tumor location, tumor size, pathologic differentiation, lymphatic permeation, lymph node metastasis, and tumor stage. Positive 14-3-3 proteins expression was observed for 6 isoforms (beta, sigma, gamma, theta, delta, eta) of these proteins in 86 patients of cholangiocarcinoma. beta and sigma isoform immunoreactivity was correlated with lymph node metastasis, tumor stage and patients' survival rate. In addition, delta isoform immunoreactivity showed trends with tumor location, tumor size, pathologic differentiation and tumor stage, while the theta isoform was correlated with pathologic differentiation. These results indicated that upregulated expression of some isoforms of 14-3-3 may be a common mechanism for evading apoptosis in cholangiocarcinoma, so that targeting 14-3-3 may be a novel promising strategy for the treatment of this tumor.