London Regional cancer program

5 ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JoVE

Medicine

Evaluation of Nanoparticle Uptake in Tumors in Real Time Using Intravital Imaging

Choi-Fong Cho¹, Amber Ablack², Hon-Sing Leong², Andries Zijlstra³, John Lewis^2,4

¹Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, ²London Regional Cancer Program, London Health Science Centre, ³Department of Pathology, Vanderbilt University , ⁴Translational Prostate Cancer Research Group, London Health Science Centre

We present a novel approach to quantify nanoparticle localization in the vasculature of human xenografted tumors using dynamic, real-time intravital imaging in an avian embryo model.

JoVE Journal

Quantitative Analysis of Cancer Metastasis using an Avian Embryo Model

Trenis D. Palmer¹, John Lewis², Andries Zijlstra¹

¹Department of Pathology, Vanderbilt University , ²Departments of Oncology, Surgery and Medical Biophysics, London Regional cancer program

Using quantitative PCR, we demonstrate how the well-established chick CAM model can be used to quantitatively analyze the metastasis of human tumor cells to distant organs.

Medicine

Adaptation of Semiautomated Circulating Tumor Cell (CTC) Assays for Clinical and Preclinical Research Applications

Lori E. Lowes^1,2, Benjamin D. Hedley³, Michael Keeney^3,4, Alison L. Allan^1,2,4,5

¹London Regional Cancer Program, London Health Sciences Centre, ²Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, Western University, ³Special Hematology/Flow Cytometry, London Health Sciences Centre, ⁴Lawson Health Research Institute, ⁵Department of Oncology, Western University

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are prognostic in several metastatic cancers. This manuscript describes the gold standard CellSearch system (CSS) CTC enumeration platform and highlights common misclassification errors. In addition, two adapted protocols are described for user-defined marker characterization of CTCs and CTC enumeration in preclinical mouse models of metastasis using this technology.

Medicine

Generation of Organ-conditioned Media and Applications for Studying Organ-specific Influences on Breast Cancer Metastatic Behavior

Matthew M. Piaseczny^*1,2, Graciella M. Pio^*1,2, Jenny E. Chu^1,2, Ying Xia¹, Kim Nguyen^1,3, David Goodale¹, Alison Allan^1,2,4,5

¹London Regional Cancer Program, London Health Sciences Centre, ²Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, ³Department of Biochemistry, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, ⁴Department of Oncology, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, ⁵Lawson Health Research Institute

This manuscript describes an ex vivo model system comprised of organ-conditioned media derived from the lymph node, bone, lung, and brain of mice. This model system can be used to identify and study organ-derived soluble factors and their effects on the organ tropism and metastatic behavior of cancer cells.

Cancer Research

Isolation and Functional Assessment of Human Breast Cancer Stem Cells from Cell and Tissue Samples

Vasudeva Bhat^1,2, Cory Lefebvre^1,2, David Goodale¹, Mauricio Rodriguez-Torres^1,2, Alison L. Allan^1,2,3,4

¹London Regional Cancer Program, ²Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, Western University, ³Department of Oncology, Western University, ⁴Lawson Health Research Institute

This experimental protocol describes the isolation of BCSCs from breast cancer cell and tissue samples as well as the in vitro and in vivo assays that can be used to assess BCSC phenotype and function.