What's New?

March 2012

Hopkins team identifies new pathway in Hepatobiliary cancers

An overarching our goal of our research is to identify proteins and pathways which overexpressed (over-represented in biliary cancers), since these may potentially be targeted by therapies that are specifically toxic to and kill tumor cells but not normal cells. In a recent publication in Human Pathology, Dr. Bai and Anders led a study which identified the expression of Yes-associated protein in biliary cancers. The Yes-associated protein (YAP) is a transcription co-activator of the Hippo signaling pathway. YAP deficiency in mice alters bile duct development, suggesting that YAP plays an important role in biliary tract homeostasis. This study finds elevated nuclear expression of YAP in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma relative to normal bile ducts. The authors also demonstrate that nuclear YAP expression correlates with nuclear survivin expression in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, and in a mouse model find that survivin expression is dependent upon Yes protein expression. These findings identify a novel pathway which can potentially be targeted in biliary cancers, leading to non-toxic affective therapies.

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Note: This study was supported in part by donations to the biliary cancer research fund at Johns Hopkins.

December 2011

Mimicker of Gallbladder Adenocarcinoma Described at Johns Hopkins

In recent study, Dr. Aatur Singhi at Hopkins described 6 cases of proliferations of Luschka ducts which were confused with adenocarcinoma of the gallbladder. In fact, in 2 of the cases, the diagnosis of adenocarcinoma had been rendered by the contributing pathologist. Dr. Singhi’s manuscript describes how these developmental variants can undergo proliferation in the setting of cholecystitis, and in the setting of a thickened gallbladder mimic cancer both clinically and pathologically. Dr. Singhi outlines specific criteria to help make this important distinction, and prevent a misdiagnosis of adenocarcinoma which would result in significant over treatment and patient morbidity. These cases illustrate the utility of second opinion pathology in the biliary tract.

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Reference: American Journal of Surgical Pathology 2011; 35:883-890.