HMGA1-TRIP13 axis promotes stemness and epithelial mesenchymal transition of perihilar cholangiocarcinoma in a positive feedback loop dependent on c-Myc

BACKGROUND: Cholangiocarcinoma is a highly malignant cancer with very dismal prognosis. Perihilar cholangiocarcinoma(pCCA) accounts for more than 50% of all cholangiocarcinoma and is well-characterized for its low rate of radical resection. Effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy of pCCA are very limited. METHODS: Here we screened potential biomarkers of pCCA with transcriptome sequencing and evaluated the prognostic significance of HMGA1 in a large cohort pCCA consisting of 106 patients. With bioinformatics and in vitro/vivo experiments, we showed that HMGA1 induced tumor cell stemness and epithelial-mesenchymal-transition (EMT), and thus facilitated proliferation, migration and invasion by promoting TRIP13 transcription. Moreover, TRIP13 was also an unfavorable prognostic biomarker of pCCA, and double high expression of HMGA1/TRIP13 could predict prognosis more sensitively. TRIP13 promoted pCCA progression by suppressing FBXW7 transcription and stabilizing c-Myc. c-Myc in turn induced the transcription and expression of both HMGA1 and TRIP13, indicating that HMGA-TRIP13 axis facilitated pCCA stemness and EMT in a positive feedback pathway. CONCLUSIONS: HMGA1 and TRIP13 were unfavorable prognostic biomarkers of pCCA. HMGA1 enhanced pCCA proliferation, migration, invasion, stemness and EMT, by inducing TRIP13 expression, suppressing FBXW7 expression and stabilizing c-Myc. Moreover, c-Myc can induce the transcription of HMGA1 and TRIP13, suggesting that HMGA-TRIP13 axis promoted EMT and stemness in a positive feedback pathway dependent on c-Myc. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13046-021-01890-1.