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Liver cancer

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma—appearances can be deceiving

The phenotype and behaviour of primary tumours in the liver is widely believed to reflect their cell of origin. A new study in mice shows that this relationship is not always the case—the cells of origin of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas might be hepatocytes rather than the expected cholangiocytes or bipotential hepatic progenitor cells.

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Figure 1: Tamoxifen-induced Alb-Cre-ERT2;R26lacZ/+ and CK19-Cre-ERT2;R26RlacZ/+ mice were exposed to thioacetamide in their drinking water for 30 weeks.

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Correspondence to Malcolm R. Alison.

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Alison, M., Lin, WR. Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma—appearances can be deceiving. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 10, 131–133 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2012.258

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