Bioinformatic Analysis Identifying S100a9 Associated With Cell Proliferation and Metastasis in Neuroblastoma

Abstract Background: More than half of neuroblastoma (NB) patients presented with distant metastases and the mortality of patients suffering from metastatic relapse was about 90%. It is urgent to find a biomarker that can facilitate the prediction of metastasis in NB patients. Methods and Results: In the present study, we systematically analyzed Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets and focused on identifying the critical molecular networks and novel key hub genes implicated in NB. We found totally, 176 up-regulated and 19 down-regulated differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. Based on these DEGs, a PPI network composed of 150 nodes and 452 interactions was established. PPI network identification combined with qRT-PCR, ELISA and IHC, S100A9 as was screened as an outstanding gene. Furthermore, in vitro tumorigenesis assays demonstrated that S100A9 overexpression enhanced the proliferation, migration, and invasion of NB cells. Conclusions: Taken together, our findings suggested that S100A9 could participate in NB tumorigenesis and metastasis and that S100A9 has the potential to be used as a biomarker in the prediction of NB metastasis.