The correlation between the malignant proliferation on cholangiocarcinoma cell lines and in bile from Helicobacter pylori infected patients with biliary tract stones

Xudong Xu¹, Quan Sun², Zhisu Liu², Lin Zhang¹, Zhiyong Luo¹, Yun Xia¹ and Yaqun Wu¹*

¹Department of General Surgery, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, P.R. China

²Department of General Surgery, Zhongnan Hospital, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430071, P.R. China.

*Corresponding author, E-mail: wyqmd@126.com. Tel: 86-27-83663819. Fax: +86-27-83646605.

Accepted 25 May, 2010

   Abstract

Helicobacter pylori has been detected in human tissue and is a candidate for etiologic investigations on the causes of hepatic and biliary tract diseases, but reliable serologic tests need to be developed in order to pursue such investigations. The aim of this study was to assess the correlation between the infection of H. pylori in bile from patients with biliary tract stones and the proliferation of human cholangiocarcinoma and its mechanism. Choledocholithiasis bile with positive H. pylori (PCB), Choledocholithiasis bile with negative H. pylori (NCB) and normal bile (NB) were part of the study. Cholangiocarcinoma cell lines QBC939 and TFK-1 were analyzed. The proliferative effects were measured by methabenzthiazuron (MTT) assay. Cell cycle and apoptosis were analyzed by flow cytometry. Compared with NB and NCB, PCB significantly promoted the proliferation of cholangiocarcinoma cell lines QBC939 and TFK-1. The proliferative index in PCB group was obviously higher than that in NCB group after being treated with 1% PCB for 48 h (p < 0.05). As far as the apoptosis rate was concerned, there were no obvious differences between PCB group and NCB group (p < 0.05), same as between PCB group and NB group (p < 0.05). The percentage of S phase increased remarkably in PCB group compared with NCB group, while the percentage of G₀/G₁ phase decreased remarkably in PCB group compared with NCB group. It was suggested that PCB can greatly promote the malignant proliferation of human cholangiocarcinoma cell lines QBC939 and TFK-1, and the mechanism was affected by the changes of cell cycle. So we can predict that there was perhaps a close relation between H. pylori infection and cholangiocarcinoma.

Key words: Malignant proliferation, Helicobacter pylori, cholelithiasis, bile, cholangiocarcinoma.