The effect of TWIST silencing in metastatic chordoma cells
Chordoma is a slowly growing and invasive bone tumor  with a tendency to metastasize locally in advanced stages.  It is essential to discover new therapeutics that target genes involved in the metastasis of chordoma. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) might robustly influence the metastasis of a tumor bulk. To our knowledge, this is the first time to show that EMT might have a role in chordoma metastasis. In this study, we aim to investigate the possible role of Twist, a key player transcription factor of EMT, in chordoma metastasis. The TWIST gene was silenced by short hairpins in chordoma cell line MUG-Chor1 and effects on metastasis were investigated by wound healing/gap closure and invasion assays. Twist-silenced MUG-Chor1 cells were found to be less migratory and less invasive when compared to the negative control. This study indicates that Twist might have a role in metastatic chordoma cells.