Sarcomas produce an aberrant extracellular matrix (ECM), which in turn provides informative cues for cell growth and invasion. Neural EGF-like molecule 1 (NELL1) is a secreted glycoprotein characterized by its non-neoplastic osteoinductive properties, but it is highly expressed in skeletal sarcomas. Here, researchers show that genetic deletion of NELL1 significantly reduces the invasive behavior of human osteosarcoma (OS) cell lines. NELL1 deletion results in reduced OS disease progression, suppression of metastasis, and improved survival in xenograft mouse models. Transcriptomic and phosphoproteomic analyses revealed that NELL1 deletion skews matricellular protein expression associated with diminished FAK signaling. Culturing NELL1 knockout sarcoma cells on matricellular proteins enriched in wild-type OS reverses the phenotypic and signaling changes caused by NELL1 deficiency. In sarcoma patients, high NELL1 expression correlates with decreased overall survival. These findings in mouse and human models suggest that NELL1 expression alters the sarcoma ECM to modulate cell invasive potential and prognosis. Disruption of NELL1 signaling may represent a novel therapeutic approach to shorten the time to disease progression in sarcomas.
Expression of NELL1 transcripts was observed as a conserved feature in all human OS cell lines examined. Here, researchers first performed gene deletion studies using the 143B cell line, generating six NELL1 KO clones using CRISPR/Cas9. Multiple cellular effects were observed in NELL1 KO cell clones compared to vector controls, including reduced proliferation, attachment, and invasion. Similar results were observed in analysis of a polyclonal NELL1 KO 143B cell population and were recapitulated in similar assessments in five other available OS cell lines. Overexpression studies were performed, in which adenoviral NELL1 (Ad-NELL1) delivery resulted in partial restoration of gene expression and almost complete restoration of the attachment and invasion potential of NELL1 KO 143B sarcoma cells (Figure 1K-M). These data confirm that the NELL1 gene plays a critical role in maintaining the cellular proliferation, attachment, and invasion potential of OS cells.
Figure 1. Effects of adenoviral NELL1 (Ad-NELL1) among 143B cells with or without NELL1 gene deletion. (Qin Q, et al., 2022)
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The NELL2 adenoviral particles from Creative Biogene delivered exceptional transduction efficiency in our neuronal studies. The purity and titer were as promised, and the results were highly reproducible.
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