BACKGROUND

Osteosarcoma (OS) patients with metastasis have very dismal prognoses, and lack effective target therapies. Overexpression of cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA) 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 cPLAa was detected with immunohistochemistry in 102 cases of OS. The clinical significance of cPLAa was evaluated by analyzing its correlation with clinicopathological factors. The prognostic significance of cPLAa was estimated by univariate and multivariate analysis. The oncogenic functions of cPLAa 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 cPLAa expression or inhibiting its activity by a specific antagonist.

RESULTS

In our study, high expression of cPLAa was significantly associated with metastasis and advanced Enneking stage. High cPLAa expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis and it was an independent prognostic biomarker of OS. By silencing cPLAa or inhibiting its activity by a specific antagonist, we demonstrated that cPLAa promoted cell invasion of OS cells via inducing the EMT process.

CONCLUSIONS

High cPLAa expression was an independent prognostic biomarker of OS, and cPLAa could promote OS cell invasion via inducing the EMT process, indicating that cPLAa was an independent prognostic biomarker and may be an effective drug target for OS.