Depletion of ALX1 causes inhibition of migration and induction of apoptosis in human osteosarcoma

Osteosarcoma is the most common primary malignant tumor in children and young adults, and the molecular regulation of the invasion of osteosarcoma (OS) remains unknown. In this study, we found that increased expression of ALX1 was associated with the progression of osteosarcoma and that ALX1 protein levels were significantly elevated in matched distant metastases. High ALX1 levels also predict shorter overall survival of osteosarcoma patients. We investigated the therapeutic potential of targeting ALX1 expression using the technique of RNA silencing via short hairpin RNA (shRNA). Synthetic shRNA duplexes against ALX1 were introduced to downregulate the expression of ALX1 in a highly malignant osteosarcoma cell line, U2OS. The results obtained indicated that shRNA targeting of ALX1 could lead to an efficient and specific inhibition of endogenous ALX1 activity. Furthermore, we found that depletion of ALX1 caused a dramatic cell cycle arrest, followed by massive apoptotic cell death, and eventually resulted in a significant decrease in migration and invasion of the osteosarcoma cell line studied.