Abstract:Objective To investigate the impacts of deoxycholic acid (DCA) and Takeda-G protein-coupled bile acid receptor 5 (TGR-5) on the proliferation and metastasis of cholangiocarcinoma cells. Methods The expressions of TGR-5 in human cholangiocarcinoma cells (RBE) and normal intrahepatic biliary epithelial cells (HIBEPic) were detected by polymerase chain reaction(PCR) and Western blot.Using MTT method,the effect of different concentrations of DCA on the proliferation of RBE cells was measured.Transwell was used to detect the effect of DCA on the invasiveness of RBE cells.Western blot was used to determine the expression levels of epithelial mesenchymal transition(EMT)-related proteins(epithelial cell markers:E-cadherin, mesenchymal tissue markers: N-cadherin ,Vimentin and transcription factor Snail)in RBE cells. Results TGR-5 was highly expressed in cholangiocarcinoma RBE cells and lowly expressed in HIBEPic lines.DCA could increased the viability of cholangiocarcinoma cells,and increased with the increase of DCA concentration.Transwell results showed that the number of invasive cells in RBE cells with 400 μM DCA was significantly higher than that in RBE cells without DCA.Western blot results suggested that down-regulated expression of E-cadherin and up-regulated expressions of N-cadherin,Vimentin and Snail induced EMT in RBE cells without DCA. Conclusion The high expression of TGR-5 in RBE cells of cholangiocarcinoma is closely related to the progression of cholangiocarcinoma.DCA can enhance RBE cell viability and promote its proliferation.By up-regulating the expressions of Snail,N-cadherin and Vimentin and down-regulating the expression of E-cadherin,DCA can induce EMT in RBE cells and promote the metastasis of cholangiocarcinoma cells.