ATP5b and β2-microglobulin are predictive markers for the prognosis of patients with gallbladder cancer.

The differences in clinical, pathological, and biological characteristics between adenocarcinoma (AC) and squamous cell/adenosquamous carcinoma (SC/ASC) of the gallbladder have not been well documented. This study investigates the clinical and pathological associations of ATP5B and β2M with benign and malignant lesions of the gallbladder. In this study, ATP5B and β2M expression in 46 SC/ASCs and 80 ACs were examined using immunohistochemistry. The rate of ATP5B positive expression was significantly lower, while the rate of β2M expression was significantly higher, in AC and SC/ASC than in gallbladder adenomas, gallbladder polyps, or gallbladder epithelium with stone (P < 0.01). More SC/ASCs had larger tumor mass and good differentiation compared to ACs. Positive β2M and negative ATP5B expression were significantly associated with large tumor size, high TNM stage, lymph node metastasis, and invasion of SC/ASCs and ACs. Univariate Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that positive β2M (P < 0.05 or P < 0.001) expression and negative ATP5B (P < 0.001) expression were significantly associated with decreased overall survival in both SC/ASC and AC patients. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that negative ATP5B expression is an independent-prognostic factor for poor prognosis in both SC/ASC (P < 0.01) and AC (P < 0.001) patients. Positive β2M expression is an independent-prognostic factor for poor prognosis in AC (P < 0.05) patients. Our study suggested that positive β2M expression or loss of ATP5B expression in tumor tissues is closely related to the metastasis, invasion, and poor-prognosis of gallbladder cancer.