Chordoma is a slowly growing and invasive bone tumor with a tendency to metastasize locally in advanced stages. It is essential to discover new therapeutics that target genes involved in the metastasis of chordoma. | Turkish Journal of Biology Turk J Biol (2018) 42: 279-285 © TÜBİTAK doi: Research Article The effect of TWIST silencing in metastatic chordoma cells 1, 1 1 2 1 Esra AYDEMİR *, Ezgi KAŞIKCI , Burcu COŞKUNÇELEBİ , Ömer Faruk BAYRAK , Fikrettin ŞAHİN 1 Department of Genetics and Bioengineering, Faculty of Engineering, Yeditepe University, İstanbul, Turkey 2 Department of Medical Genetics, Yeditepe University Medical School and Yeditepe University Hospital, İstanbul, Turkey Received: Accepted/Published Online: Final Version: Abstract: Chordoma is a slowly growing and invasive bone tumor with a tendency to metastasize locally in advanced stages. It is essential to discover new therapeutics that target genes involved in the metastasis of chordoma. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) might robustly influence the metastasis of a tumor bulk. To our knowledge, this is the first time to show that EMT might have a role in chordoma metastasis. In this study, we aim to investigate the possible role of Twist, a key player transcription factor of EMT, in chordoma metastasis. The TWIST gene was silenced by short hairpins in chordoma cell line MUG-Chor1 and effects on metastasis were investigated by wound healing/gap closure and invasion assays. Twist-silenced MUG-Chor1 cells were found to be less migratory and less invasive when compared to the negative control. This study indicates that Twist might have a role in metastatic chordoma cells. Key words: Cancer, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, chordoma, twist 1. Introduction Chordoma, an aggressive and locally invasive bone neoplasm, accounts for 1%–4% of all primary bone tumors, affecting people in a year. It is considered to be the second most malignant tumor of the spine (McMaster et al., 2001). Although it is known as a lowgrade tumor, chordoma tends to relapse and metastasize locally (Yang et al., 2009), .
