Genomic Heterogeneity of Osteosarcoma - Shift from Single Candidates to Functional Modules

Osteosarcoma (OS), a bone tumor, exhibit a complex karyotype. On the genomic level a highly variable degree of alterations in nearly all chromosomal regions and between individual tumors is observable. This hampers the identification of common drivers in OS biology. To identify the common molecular...

Verfasser: Poos, Kathrin
Smida, Jan
Maugg, Doris
Eckstein, Gertrud N.
Baumhoer, Daniel
Nathrath, Michaela
Korsching, Eberhard Ulrich
FB/Einrichtung:FB 05: Medizinische Fakultät
Dokumenttypen:Artikel
Medientypen:Text
Erscheinungsdatum:2015
Publikation in MIAMI:16.06.2015
Datum der letzten Änderung:14.07.2022
Angaben zur Ausgabe:[Electronic ed.]
Quelle:PLoS ONE 10 (2015) 4, e0123082, 1-20
Fachgebiet (DDC):570: Biowissenschaften; Biologie
Lizenz:CC BY 4.0
Sprache:Deutsch
Anmerkungen:Finanziert durch den Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 2015/2016 der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU Münster).
Format:PDF-Dokument
ISSN:1932-6203
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-19239503699
Weitere Identifikatoren:DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0123082
Permalink:https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-19239503699
Onlinezugriff:journal.pone.0123082.pdf

Osteosarcoma (OS), a bone tumor, exhibit a complex karyotype. On the genomic level a highly variable degree of alterations in nearly all chromosomal regions and between individual tumors is observable. This hampers the identification of common drivers in OS biology. To identify the common molecular mechanisms involved in the maintenance of OS, we follow the hypothesis that all the copy number-associated differences between the patients are intercepted on the level of the functional modules. The implementation is based on a network approach utilizing copy number associated genes in OS, paired expression data and protein interaction data. The resulting functional modules of tightly connected genes were interpreted regarding their biological functions in OS and their potential prognostic significance. We identified an osteosarcoma network assembling well-known and lesser-known candidates. The derived network shows a significant connectivity and modularity suggesting that the genes affected by the heterogeneous genetic alterations share the same biological context. The network modules participate in several critical aspects of cancer biology like DNA damage response, cell growth, and cell motility which is in line with the hypothesis of specifically deregulated but functional modules in cancer. Further, we could deduce genes with possible prognostic significance in OS for further investigation (e.g. EZR, CDKN2A, MAP3K5). Several of those module genes were located on chromosome 6q. The given systems biological approach provides evidence that heterogeneity on the genomic and expression level is ordered by the biological system on the level of the functional modules. Different genomic aberrations are pointing to the same cellular network vicinity to form vital, but already neoplastically altered, functional modules maintaining OS. This observation, exemplarily now shown for OS, has been under discussion already for a longer time, but often in a hypothetical manner, and can here be exemplified for OS.