Identification of crucial genes in metastatic osteosarcoma and prognostic biomarker in osteosarcoma patients

Background: Osteosarcoma is still a challenging cancer that poses a huge threat to human health worldwide, especially in young people. The aim of this study was to identify prognostic genes associated with neoplasm metastasis in osteosarcoma, and construct a prognostic nomogram to help the orthopedist to assess prognosis of osteosarcoma patients. Methods: Gene expression and clinical information were extracted from the TARGET database. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with osteosarcoma metastasis were identified and subjected to GO functional and KEGG pathway enrichment analyses. Survival and Cox analyses were used to identify prognostic genes. Results: First, 214 DEGs were identified as crucial genes associated with osteosarcoma metastasis. Then functional enrichment analyses showed that DEGs were enriched in cell-cell signaling, inflammatory response, and immune response. Survival and Cox analyses identified five prognostic genes (MUC17, MYC, TAC4, HERC5, OR8G5) that were related to the prognosis of patients. This five-genes signature has a great diagnostic value for prognosis because it was not affected by age at diagnosis, gender, metastasis or relapse. Conclusions: The present study identifies five target genes related to the metastasis of osteosarcoma. This five-genes signature can be used to predict the prognosis of osteosarcoma patients and may become new potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of osteosarcoma.