Establishment and verification of potential biomarkers for cholangiocarcinoma

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a malignancy arising from multiple locations along the biliary tree, which is still lacking effective diagnostic biomarkers. The present study aimed to provide a comprehensive differential gene expression profile for the disease. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) for CCA were explored in-depth using a Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) dataset, an internal cohort of clinical participants as well as in vitro experiments with the HUCCT1 cell line. Based on the GEO dataset, potential biomarker genes were proposed and the enriched biological processes as well as signaling pathways were further investigated. A protein-protein interaction network of target genes was established. In the clinical specimens, the functions of the primary candidate, FBJ murine osteosarcoma viral oncogene homolog B (FOSB), were evaluated by reverse transcription-quantitative (RT-q)PCR and western blot analysis. A Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay was used for a functional study on FOSB. The results indicated that, compared with non-tumor bile duct tissues, primary CCA samples had 676 differentially expressed genes, including 277 downregulated and 399 upregulated ones. Among these, HBD, FOSB, HBB, ITIH2, FCGBP, MT1JP, PIJR, SLC38A1, COL10A1 and MMP19 were determined to be the most significant DEGs. At the same time, upregulated genes were enriched in ‘vasculature development’ and ‘IL-17 signaling pathways’. Downregulated genes were enriched in ‘extracellular matrix progress’ and ‘glucuronate signaling pathway’. The patients with CCA displayed decreased levels of hemoglobin. Compared with paracancerous tissues, CCA cancerous tissues exhibited increased RNA and protein expression levels of FOSB according to RT-qPCR and western blot analysis, respectively. Furthermore, FOSB expression influenced the proliferation/viability of the CCA cell line HUCCT1. In conclusion, the present study suggested that the FOSB gene may serve as a primary biomarker candidate for CCA, providing a valuable reference for its clinical implementation.