cPLA2a correlates with metastasis and poor prognosis of osteosarcoma by facilitating epithelial-mesenchymal transition

Osteosarcoma (OS) patients with metastasis have very dismal prognoses, and lack effective target therapies. Overexpression of cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2) has been shown to promote progression in several types of cancers, but its functions in OS have not been investigated. In our study, the expression of cPLA2a was detected with immunohistochemistry in 102 cases of OS. The clinical significance of cPLA2a was evaluated by analyzing its correlation with clinicopathological factors. The prognostic significance of cPLA2a was estimated by univariate and multivariate analysis. The oncogenic functions of cPLA2a 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 cPLA2a expression or inhibiting its activity by a specific antagonist. In our study, high expression of cPLA2a was significantly associated with metastasis and advanced Enneking stage. High cPLA2a expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis and it was an independent prognostic biomarker of OS. By silencing cPLA2a or inhibiting its activity by a specific antagonist, we demonstrated that cPLA2a promoted cell invasion of OS cells via inducing the EMT process. High cPLA2a expression was an independent prognostic biomarker of OS, and cPLA2a could promote OS cell invasion via inducing the EMT process, indicating that cPLA2a was an independent prognostic biomarker and may be an effective drug target for OS.