Gallbladder cancer is the most common biliary tract malignant
tumor, with unfavorable patient outcomes. The present study aimed to identify potential diagnostic or prognostic
biomarkers for
gallbladder cancer. To do so, differentially expressed genes in the gallbladder walls and
tumor tissues of patients with
gallbladder cancer were analyzed via microarray. Furthermore, a protein-protein interaction network was constructed and genes with a degree score >10 were selected as hub genes. As
ubiquitin conjugating enzyme E2T (UBE2T) was considered to be a hub gene, its expression was assessed via reverse transcription-quantitative (RT-q)PCR and immunohistochemistry (IHC). In addition, the association between UBE2T expression and the clinicopathological characteristics of patients with
gallbladder cancer was analyzed using the χ2 test. Furthermore, all patients were divided into high- and low groups based on UBE2T expression level and overall survival analysis was performed. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed to determine whether UBE2T may serve as an independent risk factor for
gallbladder cancer. The results demonstrated that UBE2T expression was upregulated in the gallbladder walls and
tumor tissues of patients with
gallbladder cancer. Furthermore, UBE2T expression level was confirmed to be upregulated following RT-qPCR, and results from IHC demonstrated that UBE2T was predominantly expressed in the cytoplasm of
gallbladder cancer cells. In addition, high UBE2T expression level was associated with clinical stage, T classification, N classification and M classification. The results from Univariate and multivariate analyses indicated that UBE2T expression level may be considered as an independent risk factor for
gallbladder cancer. Taken together, the findings from this study suggested that high UBE2T expression level may contribute to the poor prognosis of patients with
gallbladder cancer, and that UBE2T may act as an independent prognostic
biomarker for these patients.