Gene expression in sarcoma cell lines

As a high-grade soft-tissue sarcoma (STS), undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (UPS) is highly recurrent and malignant. UPS is categorized as “tumor of uncertain differentiation” and few options for treatment resulting from lack of targetable genetic alterations. There are also few cell lines representative subtype for UPS, leading to poor experimental evidence. Here, we have established and characterized new cell lines derived from recurrent two UPS tissues. Cells were obtained UPS tissues by mincing followed by extracting or dissociating using enzymes and cultured by regular culture environment. Cells were maintained and immortal for months without artificial treatment and some cell clones were tumorigenic in immunodeficient mouse model. Interestingly, some cells formed tumor in vivo when injected after aggregation in non-adherent culture system for 24 h. The tissues from in vivo study and tissues from patients were compared if it is representative for UPS by immunohistochemistry. Pathways related to cell cycle as DNA replication were common between cell clones while cell clones, tumorigenic in regardless of aggregation for injection, were increased expression of pathways related to cell-cell adhesion, as well as cell-cell signaling, implying a role of mesenchymal to epithelial transition for tumorigenicity in vivo. This study showed that new UPS cell lines might be a good resource for UPS study to get new insights leading to better therapeutic strategy against UPS. Overall design: mRNA expression profiling analysis of RNA-seq data for the sarcoma cell lines