Analysis of a Preliminary microRNA Expression Signature in a Human Telangiectatic Osteogenic Sarcoma Cancer Cell Line

Abstract

Telangiectatic osteosarcoma (TOS) is an aggressive variant of osteosarcoma (OS) with distinctive radiographic, gross, microscopic features, and prognostic implications. Despite several studies on OS, we are still far from understanding the molecular mechanisms of TOS. In recent years, many studies have demonstrated not only that microRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in OS tumorigenesis, development, and metastasis, but also that the presence in high-grade types of OS of cancer stem cells (CSCs) plays an important role in tumor progression. Despite these findings, nothing has been described previously about the expression of miRNAs and the presence of CSCs in human TOS. Therefore, we have isolated/characterized a putative CSC cell line from human TOS (TOS-CSCs) and evaluated the expression levels of several miRNAs in TOS-CSCs using real-time quantitative assays. We show, for the first time, the existence of CSCs in human TOS, highlighting the in vitro establishment of this unique stabilized cell line and an identification of a preliminary expression of the miRNA profile, characteristic of TOS-CSCs. These findings represent an important step in the study of the biology of one of the most aggressive variants of OS and the role of miRNAs in TOS-CSC behavior.

Cancer Stem Cells in Sarcomas: In Vitro Isolation and Role as Prognostic Markers: A Systematic Review

“…The most frequently used CSC isolation technique in osteosarcoma was Fluorescent-Activated Cell Sorter (FACS) combined with subsequent culture of the isolated and sorted cells in induction media for maintenance [25,27,31,37,46]. Four articles carried out the sphere formation assay using an induction culture medium [24,28,35,36], one article used FACS only without induction medium [33], two articles used the Magnetic-Activated Cell Sorting (MACS) technique and then induction medium [26,29], one article used MACS without induction medium [34], and finally, the Side Population (SP) technique with subsequent induction medium was used in three articles [13,30,32].…”

“…The most frequently used base medium was DMEM/F12, with a total of nine articles. One article used Ham's F12 [24], while DMEM [27], RPMI [35], and N2B27 [37] were used depending on the cell line.…”