Abstract
Osteosarcoma cells can generate vasculogenic-like, patterned networks to obtain nutrients and oxygen, which mimic some function of endotheial-like cells and facilitate tumor malignant progress. These cells also express vascular endothelial-cadherin (VE-cadherin), which is generally accepted as a strictly endothelial-specific transmembrane protein. However, its role is still relatively obscure in osteosarcoma cells. So we inhibit the VE-cadherin gene expression with siRNA in osteosarcoma cells (MG63), and culture those cells in three-dimensional medium, containing Type I collagen or Matrigel, to observe the role of VE-cadherin. Western blotting analysis show that sequence-specific siRNA can significantly decrease the expression of VE-cadherin in MG63 cell. After knockdown of VE-cadherin, osteosacoma cells cann’t induced angiogenic sprout and form osteosarcoma-generated, endotheial-like networks. Our data indicate that VE-cadherin may be a positive and specific regulator not only in angiogenesis, but also in vasculogenic mimicry of osteosarcoma cells. And it can be considered as a new prospective option in the combining treatment of aggressive tumor with highly vascularity, including osteosarcoma.
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Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the help and support from Tai-Shan Min, who work at the department of Biochemistry in Fudan University of Shanghai. And we also gratefully acknowledge the help from Mary Hendrix, who had given me some instruction on the 3D culture in thin collagen. Research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.30271314, 30772182 and 30471760.
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Zhang, LZ., Mei, J., Qian, ZK. et al. The Role of VE-cadherin in Osteosarcoma Cells. Pathol. Oncol. Res. 16, 111–117 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12253-009-9198-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12253-009-9198-1