cPLA 2 a correlates with metastasis and poor prognosis of osteosarcoma by facilitating epithelial-mesenchymal transition.

Background: Osteosarcoma (OS) patients with metastasis have very dismal prognoses, and lack effective target therapies. Overexpression of cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA ₂ ) has been shown to promote progression in several types of cancers, but its functions in OS have not been investigated.
Materials and Methods: In our study, the expression of cPLA ₂ a was detected with immunohistochemistry in 102 cases of OS. The clinical significance of cPLA ₂ a was evaluated by analyzing its correlation with clinicopathological factors. The prognostic significance of cPLA ₂ a was estimated by univariate and multivariate analysis. The oncogenic functions of cPLA ₂ a on cell proliferation and invasion were investigated by MTT assay and tranwell assay respectively. Western blotting was applied to detect the markers of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) after silencing cPLA ₂ a expression or inhibiting its activity by a specific antagonist.
Results: In our study, high expression of cPLA ₂ a was significantly associated with metastasis and advanced Enneking stage. High cPLA ₂ a expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis and it was an independent prognostic biomarker of OS. By silencing cPLA ₂ a or inhibiting its activity by a specific antagonist, we demonstrated that cPLA ₂ a promoted cell invasion of OS cells via inducing the EMT process.
Conclusions: High cPLA ₂ a expression was an independent prognostic biomarker of OS, and cPLA ₂ a could promote OS cell invasion via inducing the EMT process, indicating that cPLA ₂ a was an independent prognostic biomarker and may be an effective drug target for OS.
(Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier GmbH.. All rights reserved.)