The effect of TWIST silencing in metastatic chordoma cells

Abstract

Chordoma is a slowly growing and invasive bone tumor with a tendency to metastasize locally in advanced stages. It isessential to discover new therapeutics that target genes involved in the metastasis of chordoma. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition(EMT) might robustly influence the metastasis of a tumor bulk. To our knowledge, this is the first time to show that EMT might havea role in chordoma metastasis. In this study, we aim to investigate the possible role of Twist, a key player transcription factor of EMT,in chordoma metastasis. The TWIST gene was silenced by short hairpins in chordoma cell line MUG-Chor1 and effects on metastasiswere investigated by wound healing/gap closure and invasion assays. Twist-silenced MUG-Chor1 cells were found to be less migratoryand less invasive when compared to the negative control. This study indicates that Twist might have a role in metastatic chordoma cells.