Microenvironment alters epigenetic and gene expression profiles in Swarm rat chondrosarcoma tumors

Hamm CA, Stevens JW, Xie H, Vanin EF, Morcuende JA, Abdulkawy H, Seftor EA, Sredni ST, Bischof JM, Wang D, Malchenko S, Bonaldo Mde F, Casavant TL, Hendrix MJ, Soares MB · BMC Cancer

Transplantation site changed the tumours' methylation and expression profiles, and functional assays pointed to thymosin β4 as having a role in chondrosarcoma metastasis: of nine mice given cells overexpressing it, one died early with multiple lung micrometastases, which had never followed subcutaneous injection before, while tumour size did not differ from controls.

Population

Swarm rat chondrosarcoma tumours transplanted subcutaneously or into the tibia of Sprague-Dawley rats, and tumour cells overexpressing thymosin β4 or c-fos grown in nude mice

Intervention

None — transcriptomic and methylation profiling with follow-up functional assays

Comparator

Tumours at different transplantation sites; control tissue

Limitations

The authors call the functional follow-up preliminary and say the metastasis finding rests on a single animal; chondrosarcoma is a malignancy of cartilage cells, not a model of cartilage repair, so this constrains no claim about a healthy joint. Charitable-trust funding, no competing interests.