Celli A, Que F G
Mayo Clinic and Foundation, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, USA.
Semin Liver Dis. 1998;18(2):177-85. doi: 10.1055/s-2007-1007153.
The importance of cholangiocytes, the epithelial cells lining bile ducts, in the biology and pathobiology of biliary epithelia is rapidly growing due to the advent of suitable experimental models and techniques to study these cells. However, the role of cholangiocytes as a major cellular target in a variety of severe hepatobiliary diseases or cholangiopathies remains unanswered. As the biology of cholangiocyte death evolves, apoptosis has emerged as a key player in the development of ductopenia in these cholangiopathies. Cholangiocytes are continuously exposed to a variety of genotoxic insults, such as chronic inflammation and hydrophobic bile acids. This chronic exposure may predispose cholangiocytes to oncogenic mutations and the further progression to malignancy (or cholangiocarcinoma [CC]), due, in part, to failure to activate apoptosis and delete cells with genetic damage.
胆管上皮细胞作为胆管内衬的上皮细胞，由于适用于研究这些细胞的实验模型和技术的出现，其在胆管上皮生物学和病理生物学中的重要性正在迅速提升。然而，胆管上皮细胞在各种严重肝胆疾病或胆管病中作为主要细胞靶点的作用仍未明确。随着胆管上皮细胞死亡生物学的发展，凋亡已成为这些胆管病中胆管减少症发生发展的关键因素。胆管上皮细胞持续暴露于各种基因毒性损伤，如慢性炎症和疏水性胆汁酸。这种长期暴露可能使胆管上皮细胞易发生致癌突变并进一步发展为恶性肿瘤（即胆管癌[CC]），部分原因是未能激活凋亡并清除具有基因损伤的细胞。
