CDH11 expression is associated with survival in patients with osteosarcoma

Previous studies have shown that cadherin-11 (CDH11) may be involved in the metastatic process of osteosarcoma. The correlation of the expression levels of CDH11 in osteosarcoma samples with the risk of disease progression and metastasis was examined. Real time qRT-PCR was used to quantify CDH11 expression in a set of newly established osteosarcoma cell lines, 11 primaries and five metastases, compared to the levels in 12 normal osteoblast cell lines established from healthy bone, and also in a set of 10 snap-frozen osteosarcoma samples. In all cases long term clinical follow-up data was available. The CDH11 expression level decreased gradually from the osteoblast to the primary cell lines (p=0.2184) and further to those established from the tumor metastases (p=0.0275). Importantly, the level of CDH11 expression correlated significantly (p=0.01) with patient survival (Kaplan-Meier survival analysis) in both sample sets (p=0.0128 for the cell lines, p=0.0492 for the biopsies). In conclusion, the results indicate that CDH11 may be useful as a prognostic marker of disease progression and survival in osteosarcoma.