FXYD6 is a new biomarker of cholangiocarcinoma

Members of the FXYD domain-containing ion transport regulator protein family, including FXYD3 and FXYD5, play an important role in the pathogenesis of numerous tumors. However, the correlation between the expression of FXYD6 and tumors remains poorly understood. In the current study, the expression of FXYD6 was examined immunohistochemically in 72 cholangiocarcinoma tissues and 30 distal normal bile duct tissues matched with the tumors. The results show that the positive expression rate of FXYD6 was significantly higher in cholangiocarcinoma than that in normal bile duct tissue (69 vs. 33.3%; P=0.002). Furthermore, the positive expression rate of FXYD6 in well- and moderately-differentiated cholangiocarcinoma was clearly higher than that in poorly-differentiated and mucinous cholangiocarcinoma (85.7 vs. 40%; P=0.000). However, there was no significant correlation between the expression of FXYD6 and gender (P=0.393), age (P=0.174), histological type (P=0.123), T stage (P=0.164), lymph node metastasis (P=0.343), perineural invasion (P=0.088) and tumor location (P=0.238). The results of this study indicate that FXYD6 may be a new biomarker for cholangiocarcinoma and may be associated with a favorable prognosis in this malignant disease.