CEP55 promotes the proliferation and invasion of tumour cells via the AKT signalling pathway in osteosarcoma.

The molecular mechanisms underlying the development of osteosarcoma (OS) are not fully understood. In this study, we investigated for the first time the clinical significance and biological activity of centrosomal protein 55 (CEP55) in OS. We found that CEP55 was overexpressed in OS, and the CEP55 expression level in OS was correlated with metastasis and poor prognosis. Through in vitro experiments, we confirmed that CEP55 knockdown significantly induced cell cycle arrest at G1 phase and suppressed OS cell proliferation, migration and invasion. In addition, CEP55 knockdown suppressed OS tumour growth in nude mice. Global gene expression profiling of CEP55-silenced MNNG/HOS cells showed that the AKT pathway might be involved in the regulation of OS cell activity. Two downstream factors of AKT signalling, CCND1 and FN1, were found to have significantly higher expression in tumour tissues, and their mRNA expression levels were strongly correlated with CEP55 expression. To conclude, our data suggest that CEP55 can be used as a prognostic marker for OS, highlighting the significance of CEP55 signalling as a putative therapeutic target.