Fig. 1

Adjacent-cancer hepatocytes promote the malignant progression of ICC. a Kaplan–Meier survival curves of cholangiocarcinoma patients in our hospital and SEER database. b Comparison of the cumulative percentage of patients who developed liver metastasis (left) or distant metastasis (right) between patients with ICC and ECC in our hospital. c Comparison of the cumulative percentage of patients who developed distant metastasis between patients with ICC and ECC in the SEER database. d Representative images of H&E-stained ICC tissue sections. Yellow arrowheads reveal infiltration of ICC cells within adjacent-cancer hepatocytes (blue arrows). Scale bars, 200 μm (left) and 50 μm (right). Human ICC cell line RBE and HuCCT1 were separately co-cultured with THLE3 hepatocytes. e CCK8 assays were performed to assess cell viability. f Transwell assays were employed to detect migratory and invasive abilities. Representative images (left) and quantification (right) of Transwell assays are shown. Scale bars, 100 μm. g Cell cycle progression and h cell apoptosis were measured using flow cytometry. Representative photographs (left) and quantification (right) are shown. ICC, intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma; ECC, extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. *P < 0.05 **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001