CD164 promotes tumor progression and predicts the poor prognosis of bladder cancer

CD164 was found to play a role in many malignant diseases. But the roles of CD164 in human bladder cancer have not yet been studied. The object of our study was to investigate the functions of CD164 in urothelial bladder carcinoma. The immunohistochemistry (IHC) was performed to evaluate the associations between the expression level of CD164 and clinical‐pathological features of patients, and IHC was used to analyze the relationship between CD164 and CXCR4 in tumor tissues. Real‐time qPCR and Western blot were used to measure the expression of relevant genes. The roles of CD164 in tumor cells and tissues were investigated by in vitro and in vivo experiments. The results of immunohistochemistry found that CD164 was associated with clinical and pathological features of patients. High level of CD164 was related to the distant metastasis and vascular invasion of bladder cancer patients. In vitro, by silencing of CD164, the proliferation, migration, and invasion of tumor cells were inhibited significantly by regulating related proteins such as Ki67, proliferating cell nuclear antigen, matrix metalloproteinases‐2, and matrix metalloproteinases‐9. In vivo, knocking‐down of CD164 could reduce the growth and metastasis of tumors in mice. In addition, a co‐expression was found between CD164 and CXCR4 in tumor tissues. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that CD164 was associated with the poor clinical outcomes of BC patients. Silencing of CD164 could inhibit the progression of tumors in vivo and in vitro, which may become an effective target in the treatment of bladder cancer.