Assessing alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma cell lines as tumor models by comparison of mRNA expression profiles

Numerous cell lines for human alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (ARMS) have been developed and are widely used to study biological processes of this myogenic cancer. The present study investigated the resemblance of commonly used ARMS cell lines to primary tumors in regards to gene expression. RNA-sequencing data was retrieved from published datasets for 4 commonly used ARMS cell lines and 35 ARMS primary tumors. The genes with most variable expression across primary tumors were used to calculate rank-based Spearman's correlation. The observed median correlations ranged from 0.36 to 0.61. RH-41 showed the highest median correlation while KYM-1 was the least correlated cell line. A significant number of genes dysregulated between tumors and non-tumors also exhibited similar expression patterns between tumors and cell lines, including The findings suggest that ARMS cell lines exhibit changes in gene expression compared to primary tumors and may not be completely representative of the disease process.