Transcriptomic profiling of canine osteosarcoma and non-malignant bone

Dogs develop osteosarcoma (OSA) and the disease process closely resembles that of human OSA. OSA has a poor prognosis in both species and disease free intervals and cure rates have not improved in recent years. Gene expression in canine OSAs was compared with non-tumor tissue utilising next generation RNA sequencing. The data provides novel insights into the molecular mechanisms of OSA in high risk breeds. This knowledge may inform development of prevention and treatment for OSA in dogs and supports the dog as a model of OSA in people. Canine OSA tumor and non-tumor tissue was obtained from veterinary surgeons following surgical amputation or immediately following euthanasia. Confirmation of OSA diagnosis was confirmed by qualified pathologists via histopathological examination. A 1cm3 piece of tumor was extracted along with a 1cm3 piece of adjacent non-tumor affected bone tissue. These samples were placed directly into RNAlater® and shipped at room temperature and stored at -20°C. OSA tumor and matched adjacent non-tumor bone tissue samples were homogenized. and RNA extracted using Qiagen RNeasy Mini Kit (Qiagen, Germany) according to manufacturer’s instructions. The extracted RNA was stored at -80°C. RNA was quantified using both a NanoDrop 8000 (Thermo Fisher Scientific, USA), and an Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer (Agilent, USA). RNAseq was completed at Edinburgh Genomics using an Illumina HiSeq platform. In all cases ~20 million reads were obtained from all samples analysed.