Name: patient-derived heterogeneous xenograft model of pancreatic cancer using zebrafish larvae as hosts for comparative drug assessment
Uploaded: 2019-04-30T14:00:00
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Patient-derived Heterogeneous Xenograft Model of Pancreatic Cancer Using Zebrafish Larvae as Hosts for Comparative Drug Assessment at JoVE.com

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China 81402582, Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai 12DZ2295100, 14YF1400600 and 18ZR1404500

All animal procedures were approved and followed the guidelines of the Animal Ethics Committee at Fudan University and all pancreatic cancer specimens were obtained from Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center. Ethical approval was obtained from the FUSCC Ethics Committee, and written informed consent was obtained from each patient.
1. Preparing the Equipment for the Microinjection
<ol>
	<li>Preparing the injection plate.
	<ol>
		<li>Prepare a 50 mL solution of 1% agarose di...

<ol>
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Both PDX and CDX models are vital platforms in the field of tumor biology22, and the critical step of a successful inter-species transplantation is to improve the survival of the xenograft. &#160;Recently, some studies have shown that transient expression of BCL2L1 (BCL-XL) or BCL2 may significantly improve the viability of human embryonic stem cells in mice hosts without affecting the cell identities and fates23,24</s...

Precision oncology aims to find the most beneficial therapeutic strategies for individual patient1. Currently, numerous preclinical models such as in vitro primary culture, in vitro organoid culture2, and patient-derived xenografts (PDX) in mice before or after organoid culture are proposed for diagnosis and to screen/assess the potential therapeutic choices3. PDX model generated by the injection of human primary cancer cells into immune-compromised mice, is one of the most promising tools for personalized drug screening in clinical oncology3,4. Unlike the cultured cell line in vitro, PDX models usually preserve the integrity and heterogeneity of the in vivo tumor environment, better mimicking the diversity and idiosyncratic characteristics of different tumor patients, and therefore, may predict the potential medical outcome of patients4. However, the generation of PDX models in mice requires high quality patient samples and months of time to gather sufficient cells and models for multi group experiments, and the cellular/genetic compositions of the xenograft may drift from those of the original patient&#8217;s biopsy. The success rate for establishing mice PDX model is also low, making it difficult to be broadly implemented in clinical practice. For the patients carrying rapidly progressed cancers like pancreatic cancer, they may not be able to obtain valuable information from the PDX experiments in time.&#160;
In the past few years, zebrafish has been reported to be potential hosts for not only CDX (cell-derived tumor xenograft) models, but also PDX models5,6,7,8,9,10. As a vertebrate model animal, zebrafish harbors sufficient similarities with mammals in both genetics and physiology, with two significant advantages: transparency and small in size11. Zebrafish is also highly fecundity, and hundreds of inbred larvae can be obtained within a few days from a single pair of adults12. Several studies have employed zebrafish to generate both transgenic and xenograft models of cancer diseases13,14. Compared to mice xenografts, zebrafish xenografts allow tracking at single cell resolution. A certain amount of human tissues is capable of generating hundreds of zebrafish PDX models (zPDXs), while may only be sufficient to generate a couple of mice PDX models15,16. Besides, the zebrafish larvae at 2-5 dpf already develop complete circulatory systems and metabolic organs such as liver and kidney, but not the immune system17, while the remaining yolk sac is a natural 3D medium, ideal for drug screening, drug resistance tests and tumor migration observations6,18,19,20,21.
With an ultimate attempt to use zPDX as a screening/testing platform for clinical use, here, we describe an optimized proposal for zPDX model of pancreatic cancer, which allows the in vivo candidate drug assessment within a short time using fewer cells at lower costs. Compared to the previous references about zPDX6,9,10, we introduced several optimizations to make the system more feasible and reliable for clinical personalized diagnosis: 1) pre-sorting different cell groups in the primary tumor tissues and stabilizing primary cells for one week before further experiments; 2) labeling the human cells and enhancing the cell viability in xenograft via lentivirus-based genetic modification; 3) optimizing the zebrafish culture condition in both nutriment supplements (glucose and glutamine) and temperature; 4) quantifying the drug responses of different cell types in a comparative manner. We also made changes to the injection solution by adding several supplementary materials. Altogether, those improvements provide the possibility to quickly generate a more patient-like xenograft in zebrafish hosts that can be used as a reliable tool to assess the response of candidate drugs.

<table>
	<tbody>
		<tr>
			<td>DMEM</td>
			<td>GIBCO</td>
			<td>C11995500BT</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>FBS</td>
			<td>Hyclone</td>
			<td>sv30087.03</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Y-27632</td>
			<td>Cliniscience</td>
			<td>Y0503</td>
			<td>Rho kinase inhibitor</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Primocin</td>
			<td>invivogen</td>
			<td>ant-pm-1</td>
			<td>an antibiotic for primary cell cultures</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Putrescine dihydrochloride</td>
			<td>Sigma</td>
			<td>P5780</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Nicotinamide&#160;</td>
			<td>Sigma</td>
			<td>N3376</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>penicillin streptomycin</td>
			<td>GIBCO</td>
			<td>15140122.00</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>phosphate buffer (PBS)</td>
			<td>GIBCO</td>
			<td>C10010500CP</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>HBSS&#160;</td>
			<td>GIBCO</td>
			<td>14170112.00</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>collagenase type IV</td>
			<td>GIBCO</td>
			<td>17104019.00</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>hyaluronidase</td>
			<td>Sigma</td>
			<td>H3884</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Dnase&#8544;</td>
			<td>Sigma</td>
			<td>D5025</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>insulin</td>
			<td>Sigma</td>
			<td>I9278</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>b-FGF</td>
			<td>GIBCO</td>
			<td>PHG0264</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>EGF</td>
			<td>GIBCO</td>
			<td>PHG0314</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>pancreatic cancer fibroblasts inhibitor</td>
			<td>CHI Scientific</td>
			<td>FibrOUT</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>0.45 &#956;m sterile filter</td>
			<td>Millipore</td>
			<td>SLHV033RB</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>concentration column</td>
			<td>Millipore</td>
			<td>Millipore UFC910008</td>
			<td>Concentrate the virus</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>polybrene&#160;</td>
			<td>Sigma</td>
			<td>H9268</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Hyaluronic Acid Sodium Salt</td>
			<td>Sigma</td>
			<td>H7630</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>L-glutamine</td>
			<td>GIBCO</td>
			<td>21051024.00</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>gemcitabine</td>
			<td>Gemzan</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>methylcellulose</td>
			<td>Sigma</td>
			<td>M0262</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Navitoclax(ABT-263)</td>
			<td>Selleck</td>
			<td>S1001</td>
			<td>Bcl-xL inhibitor</td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Equipment</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Microinjector</td>
			<td>NARISHIGE</td>
			<td></td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>stereomicroscope</td>
			<td>OLYMPUS</td>
			<td>MVX10</td>
			<td></td>
		</tr>
		<tr>
			<td>Confocal Microscope</td>
			<td>LEICA</td>
			<td>SP8</td>
			<td>0.00</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

patient-derived heterogeneous xenograft model of pancreatic cancer using zebrafish larvae as hosts for comparative drug assessment

Patient-derived tumor xenograft (PDX) and cell-derived tumor xenograft (CDX) are important techniques for preclinical assessment, medication guidance and basic cancer researches. Generations of PDX models in traditional host mice are time-consuming and only working for a small proportion of samples. Recently, zebrafish PDX (zPDX) has emerged as a unique host system, with the characteristics of small-scale and high efficiency. Here, we describe an optimized methodology for generating a dual fluorescence-labeled tumor xenograft model for comparative chemotherapy assessment in zPDX models. Tumor cells and fibroblasts were enriched from freshly-harvested or frozen pancreatic cancer tissue at different culture conditions. Both cell groups were labeled by lentivirus expressing green or red fluorescent proteins, as well as an anti-apoptosis gene BCL2L1. The transfected cells were pre-mixed and co-injected into the 2 dpf larval zebrafish that were then bred in modified E3 medium at 32 &#176;C. The xenograft models were treated by chemotherapy drugs and/or BCL2L1 inhibitor, and the viabilities of both tumor cells and fibroblasts were investigated simultaneously. In summary, this protocol allows researchers to quickly generate a large amount of zPDX models with a heterogeneous tumor microenvironment and provides a longer observation window and a more precise quantitation in assessing the efficiency of drug candidates.

A schematized outline of the procedure is represented in Figure 1. In short, the primary cancer tissue cells were seeded into the complete medium after digestion with or without the addition of pancreatic cancer fibroblast inhibitors. Cancer cells and fibroblasts were enriched as two distinct populations that fibroblasts dominated without inhibitors, and cancer cell growth prevailed after the addition of inhibitors (Figure 2). Tw...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Patient-derived Heterogeneous Xenograft Model of Pancreatic Cancer Using Zebrafish Larvae as Hosts for Comparative Drug Assessment at JoVE.com

Patient-derived Heterogeneous Xenograft Model of Pancreatic Cancer Using Zebrafish Larvae as Hosts for Comparative Drug Assessment

This protocol describes optimization procedures in a virus-based dual fluorescence-labeled tumor xenograft model using larval zebrafish as hosts. This heterogeneous xenograft model mimics the tissue composition of pancreatic cancer microenvironment in vivo and serves as a more precise tool for assessing drug responses in personalized zPDX (zebrafish patient-derived xenograft) models.

Patient-derived tumor xenograft (PDX) and cell-derived tumor xenograft (CDX) are important techniques for preclinical assessment, medication guidance and ...

Today we're going to introduce a larvae Zebrafish PDX Model. This model is significant because they can better mimic a similar cellular composition in the xenograft for assessing drug responses and also further improves the consistency of the results with our comparative analysis. There are two main advantages of this technique.Firstly, we use various standard chemical dyes to label cells into different fluorescence, allowing the real-time tracing of the cellular compositions and the ability of the anagraph phase. Secondly, it also improves the general survival time of human cells in zebrafish, their genetic modification, which provides a longer observation window for drug testing. This technique provides a potential model for personalized medicine for patients with pancreatic cancer and also for the pre-assessment of pre-clinical tumor drug.This method can also be used to trace other tumor cells or no tumor cell xenografted in zebrafish in vivo and to improve the cell survival for longer observation time. To prepare the injection plate, prepare a 50 milliliter solution of 1%agarose in E3 solution. Boil the solution until the agarose dissolves.Pour the entire solution into a 10 centimeter Petri dish and then place the Zebrafish embryo fixation mold onto the surface. When the agarose solution solidifies completely, remove the mold. To prepare injection needles, use a needle puller to pull a 10 centimeter glass capillary with an inner dimension of 0.9 millimeters into two needles.Using a microscope and forceps, cut the end of the needle to create an opening. First, place one to two pairs of adult Zebrafish into a mating tank around seven to nine PM.At eight AM the next morning, collect the fertilized eggs. Transfer the fertilized eggs to a Petri dish containing 40 milliliters of fresh E3 solution.Incubate at 28.5 degrees Celsius. First, transfer the collected pancreatic cancer sample into a Petri dish. Rinse the tissue five to six times with PBS and use a scalpel to cut the tissue into one millimeter cubed pieces.Next, transfer the shredded tissue into a 50 milliliter tube containing five milliliters of HBSS. Add collagenase type four, hyalurodinase, and DNAse one at the final concentrations shown here. Pipette the mixture up and down to mix well.Incubate the mixture at 37 degrees Celsius in a 5%carbon dioxide incubator for 15 to 20 minutes. Pipette the mixture up and down a few times every five minutes. Add seven milliliters of DMEM to the tube.Centrifuge at 110 times G and at four degrees Celsius for five minutes. Then, decant the supernatant and re-suspend the tumor mixture in DMEM. Plate the mixture into two six centimeter Petri dishes containing three milliliters of full growth media named group one and group two.Incubate both groups at 37 degrees Celsius in a 5%carbon dioxide incubator. After 48 hours, add 100x inhibitor of pancreatic cancer fibroblasts into the medium of group one to remove the overgrown fibroblasts, leaving the cancer cells as the major cell types. Continue incubating using the previous conditions.After producing the lentivirus, seed the cells to be infected into a 12-well plate with 30 to 40%density. Culture the cells overnight at 37 degrees Celsius in a 5%carbon dioxide incubator. The next day, replace the medium with 500 microliters of serum-free medium containing polybrene at a concentration of eight micrograms per milliliter.Incubate at 37 degrees Celsius with 5%carbon dioxide for four hours. Then, add an additional 100 microliters of the lentivirus to the medium and incubate again for 12 hours. After 12 hours, replace the medium with two milliliters of complete medium and incubate for an additional 36 hours.After 36 hours, check the fluorescence markers. Harvest the infected cells and mix them at a one-to-one ratio with a final concentration of one million cells per milliliter. Centrifuge the cells at 110 times G for five minutes and re-suspend the cell mixture in 50 microliters of injection solution.After anesthetizing the Zebrafish larvae, transfer them into the injection plate, which is filled with modified E3.Take up 25 microliters of the mixed cell suspension into the microcapillary needle and insert the needle into the microinjection manipulator. Set the injection pressure and time and inject 50 to 80 cells into the yolk sac of 48 hours post-fertilization Zebrafish. First, transfer the post-zenografted Zebrafish larvae into 40 milliliters of mix solution at 32 degrees Celsius.Place 10 zenografted larvae into each well of a 12-well plate. Next, divide the larvae into four groups. Treat the control group with E3 containing 0.1%DMSO and treat the other groups with Gemcitabine and/or Navitoclax.Incubate all larvae at 32 degrees Celsius for two days. After anesthetizing the zenografted larvae post-treatment, place them in 3%methyl cellulose. Use a fluorescence or confocal microscope to image the larvae from the lateral view.Then, use image J and graph pad software to quantify the intensity of red and green fluorescence signals. In this study, primary cancer tissue cells are seeded into complete medium after digestion with or without the addition of pancreatic cancer fibroblasts inhibitors. Cancer cells and fibroblasts are enriched as two distinct populations.The population without inhibitors is dominated by fibroblasts while cancer cell growth prevails after the addition of inhibitors. Two lentiviral packaging vectors are constructed which express green or red fluorescent proteins in BCL2L1. The virus-based fluorescence labeling represents the survival status of the cells.The mixed cancer cells and fibroblasts are injected into the Zebrafish yolk sac at 48 hours post-fertilization and are then treated with Gemcitabine and/or Navitoclax for two days. The cell viabilities in different populations and cellular composition of the zenograft are changed as the responses to the drug treatment. When processing different types of tumors, there are several steps that may need to be objected, including cell digestion time, drug treatment dosage, and so on.This technique helps researchers to employ Zebrafish from a standard CGX or PDS assay. It allows for the mixing and injection of different cells at fixed ratios to quantify the progress bands by comparing them to cell growth. Personal protection is of great significance, especially when packaging lentivirus.Wear masks and gloves when appropriate and try not to mix on skin.

patient-derived-heterogeneous-xenograft-model-pancreatic-cancer-using

Research

JoVE Journal

Cancer Research

Development and Maintenance of a Preclinical Patient Derived Tumor Xenograft Model for the Investigation of Novel Anti-Cancer Therapies

Patient derived tumor xenograft (PDTX) models provide a necessary platform in facilitating anti-cancer drug development prior to human trials. Human tumor pieces are injected subcutaneously into athymic nude mice (immunocompromised, T cell deficient) to create a bank of tumors and subsequently are passaged into different generations of mice in order to maintain these tumors from patients. Importantly, cellular heterogeneity of the original tumor is closely emulated in this model, which provides a more clinically relevant model for evaluation of drug efficacy studies (single agent and combination), biomarker analysis, resistant pathways and cancer stem cell biology. Some limitations of the PDTX model include the replacement of the human stroma with mouse stroma after the first generation in mice, inability to investigate treatment effects on metastasis due to the subcutaneous injections of the tumors, and the lack of evaluation of immunotherapies due to the use of immunocompromised mice. However, even with these limitations, the PDTX model provides a powerful preclinical platform in the drug discovery process.

Utilizing patient-derived tumors in a subcutaneous preclinical model is an excellent way to study the efficacy of novel therapies, predictive biomarker discovery, and drug resistant pathways. This model, in the drug development process, is essential in determining the fate of many novel anti-cancer therapies prior to clinical investigation.

Patient derived tumor xenograft (PDTX) models provide a necessary platform in facilitating anti-cancer drug development prior to human trials. Human tumor ...

A Melanoma Patient-Derived Xenograft Model

Accumulating evidence suggests that molecular and biological properties differ in melanoma cells grown in traditional two-dimensional tissue culture vessels versus in vivo in human patients. This is due to the bottleneck selection of clonal populations of melanoma cells that can robustly grow in vitro in the absence of physiological conditions. Further, responses to therapy in two-dimensional tissue cultures overall do not faithfully reflect responses to therapy in melanoma patients, with the majority of clinical trials failing to show the efficacy of therapeutic combinations shown to be effective in vitro. Although xenografting of melanoma cells into mice provides the physiological in vivo context absent from two-dimensional tissue culture assays, the melanoma cells used for engraftment have already undergone bottleneck selection for cells that could grow under two-dimensional conditions when the cell line was established. The irreversible alterations that occur as a consequence of the bottleneck include changes in growth and invasion properties, as well as the loss of specific subpopulations. Therefore, models that better recapitulate the human condition in vivo may better predict therapeutic strategies that effectively increase the overall survival of patients with metastatic melanoma. The patient-derived xenograft (PDX) technique involves the direct implantation of tumor cells from the human patient to a mouse recipient. In this manner, tumor cells are consistently grown under physiological stresses in vivo and never undergo the two-dimensional bottleneck, which preserves the molecular and biological properties present when the tumor was in the human patient. Notable, PDX models derived from organ sites of metastases (i.e., brain) display similar metastatic capacity, while PDX models derived from therapy naive patients and patients with acquired resistance to therapy (i.e., BRAF/MEK inhibitor therapy) display similar sensitivity to therapy.

Patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models more robustly recapitulate melanoma molecular and biological features and are more predictive of therapy response compared to traditional plastic tissue culture-based assays. Here we describe our standard operating protocol for the establishment of new PDX models and the characterization/experimentation of existing PDX models.

Accumulating evidence suggests that molecular and biological properties differ in melanoma cells grown in traditional two-dimensional tissue culture ...

Establishment of Gastric Cancer Patient-derived Xenograft Models and Primary Cell Lines

The use of preclinical models to advance our understanding of tumor biology and investigate the efficacy of therapeutic agents is key to cancer research. Although there are many established gastric cancer cell lines and many conventional transgenic mouse models for preclinical research, the disadvantages of these in vitro and in vivo models limit their applications. Because the characteristics of these models have changed in culture, they no longer model tumor heterogeneity, and their responses have not been able to predict responses in humans. Thus, alternative models that better represent tumor heterogeneity are being developed. Patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models preserve the histologic appearance of cancer cells, retain intratumoral heterogeneity, and better reflect the relevant human components of the tumor microenvironment. However, it usually takes 4-8 months to develop a PDX model, which is longer than the expected survival of many gastric patients. For this reason, establishing primary cancer cell lines may be an effective complementary method for drug response studies. The current protocol describes methods to establish PDX models and primary cancer cell lines from surgical gastric cancer samples. These methods provide a useful tool for drug development and cancer biology research.

The current protocol describes methods to establish patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models and primary cancer cell lines from surgical gastric cancer samples. The methods provide a useful tool for drug development and cancer biology research.

The use of preclinical models to advance our understanding of tumor biology and investigate the efficacy of therapeutic agents is key to cancer research. ...

Isolation and Characterization of Patient-derived Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Organoid Models

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is amongst the most lethal malignancies. Recently, next-generation organoid culture methods enabling the 3-dimensional (3D) modeling of this disease have been described. Patient-derived organoid (PDO) models can be isolated from both surgical specimens as well as small biopsies and form rapidly in culture. Importantly, organoid models preserve the pathogenic genetic alterations detected in the patient&#39;s tumor and are predictive of the patient&#39;s treatment response, thus enabling translational studies. Here, we provide comprehensive protocols for adapting tissue culture workflow to study 3D, matrix embedded, organoid models. We detail methods and considerations for isolating and propagating primary PDAC organoids. Furthermore, we describe how bespoke organoid media is prepared and quality controlled in the laboratory. Finally, we describe assays for downstream characterization of the organoid models such as isolation of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), and drug testing. Importantly we provide critical considerations for implementing organoid methodology in a research laboratory.

Patient-derived organoid cultures of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma are a rapidly established 3-dimensional model that represent epithelial tumor cell compartments with high fidelity, enabling translational research into this lethal malignancy. Here, we provide detailed methods to establish and propagate organoids as well as to perform relevant biological assays using these models.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is amongst the most lethal malignancies. Recently, next-generation organoid culture methods enabling the ...

Drug Screening of Primary Patient Derived Tumor Xenografts in Zebrafish

Patient derived xenograft models are critical in defining how different cancers respond to drug treatment in an in vivo system. Mouse models are the standard in the field, but zebrafish have emerged as an alternative model with several advantages, including the ability for high-throughput and low-cost drug screening. Zebrafish also allow for in vivo drug screening with large replicate numbers that were previously only obtainable with in vitro systems. The ability to rapidly perform large scale drug screens may open up the possibility for personalized medicine with rapid translation of results back to clinic. Zebrafish xenograft models could also be used to rapidly screen for actionable mutations based on tumor response to targeted therapies or to identify new anti-cancer compounds from large libraries. The current major limitation in the field has been quantifying and automating the process so that drug screens can be done on a larger scale and be less labor-intensive. We have developed a workflow for xenografting primary patient samples into zebrafish larvae and performing large scale drug screens using a fluorescence microscope equipped imaging unit and automated sampler unit. This method allows for standardization and quantification of engrafted tumor area and response to drug treatment across large numbers of zebrafish larvae. Overall, this method is advantageous over traditional cell culture drug screening as it allows for growth of tumor cells in an in vivo environment throughout drug treatment, and is more practical and cost-effective than mice for large scale in vivo drug screens.

Zebrafish xenograft models allow for high-throughput drug screening and fluorescent imaging of human cancer cells in an in vivo microenvironment. We developed a workflow for large scale, automated drug screening on patient-derived leukemia samples in zebrafish using an automated fluorescence microscope equipped imaging unit.

Patient derived xenograft models are critical in defining how different cancers respond to drug treatment in an in vivo system. Mouse models are the ...

A Murine Ommaya Xenograft Model to Study Direct-Targeted Therapy of Leptomeningeal Disease

Leptomeningeal disease (LMD) is an uncommon type of central nervous system (CNS) metastasis to the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF). The most common cancers that cause LMD are breast and lung cancers and melanoma. Patients diagnosed with LMD have a very poor prognosis and generally survive for only a few weeks or months. One possible reason for the lack of efficacy of systemic therapy against LMD is the failure to achieve therapeutically effective concentrations of drug in the CSF because of an intact and relatively impermeable blood-brain barrier (BBB) or blood-CSF barrier across the choroid plexus. Therefore, directly administering drugs intrathecally or intraventricularly may overcome these barriers. This group has developed a model that allows for the effective delivery of therapeutics (i.e., drugs, antibodies, and cellular therapies) chronically and the repeated sampling of CSF to determine drug concentrations and target modulation in the CSF (when the tumor microenvironment is targeted in mice). The model is the murine equivalent of a magnetic resonance imaging-compatible Ommaya reservoir, which is used clinically. This model, which is affixed to the skull, has been designated as the &#34;Murine Ommaya.&#34; As a therapeutic proof of concept, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 antibodies (clone 7.16.4) were delivered into the CSF via the Murine Ommaya to treat mice with LMD from human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive breast cancer. The Murine Ommaya increases the efficiency of drug delivery using a miniature access port and prevents the wastage of excess drug; it does not interfere with CSF sampling for molecular and immunological studies. The Murine Ommaya is useful for testing novel therapeutics in experimental models of LMD.

Here, we describe a murine xenograft model that functionally resembles an Ommaya reservoir in patients. We developed the Murine Ommaya to study novel therapeutics for the universally fatal leptomeningeal disease.

Leptomeningeal disease (LMD) is an uncommon type of central nervous system (CNS) metastasis to the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF). The most common cancers ...

Patient-Derived Tumor Explants As a "Live" Preclinical Platform for Predicting Drug Resistance in Patients

An understanding of drug resistance and the development of novel strategies to sensitize highly resistant cancers rely on the availability of suitable preclinical models that can accurately predict patient responses. One of the disadvantages of existing preclinical models is the inability to contextually preserve the human tumor microenvironment (TME) and accurately represent intratumoral heterogeneity, thus limiting the clinical translation of data. By contrast, by representing the culture of live fragments of human tumors, the patient-derived explant (PDE) platform allows drug responses to be examined in a three-dimensional (3D) context that mirrors the pathological and architectural features of the original tumors as closely as possible. Previous reports with PDEs have documented the ability of the platform to distinguish chemosensitive from chemoresistant tumors, and it has been shown that this segregation is predictive of patient responses to the same chemotherapies. Simultaneously, PDEs allow the opportunity to interrogate molecular, genetic, and histological features of tumors that predict drug responses, thereby identifying biomarkers for patient stratification as well as novel interventional approaches to sensitize resistant tumors. This paper reports PDE methodology in detail, from collection of patient samples through to endpoint analysis. It provides a detailed description of explant derivation and culture methods, highlighting bespoke conditions for particular tumors, where appropriate. For endpoint analysis, there is a focus on multiplexed immunofluorescence and multispectral imaging for the spatial profiling of key biomarkers within both tumoral and stromal regions. By combining these methods, it is possible to generate quantitative and qualitative drug response data that can be related to various clinicopathological parameters and thus potentially be used for biomarker identification.

This paper describes methods for the generation, drug treatment, and analysis of patient-derived explants for assessing tumor drug responses in a live, patient-relevant, preclinical model system.

An understanding of drug resistance and the development of novel strategies to sensitize highly resistant cancers rely on the availability of suitable ...

The Establishment and Utilization of Patient Derived Xenograft Models of Central Nervous System Metastasis

The development of novel therapies for central nervous system (CNS) metastasis has been hindered by the lack of preclinical models that accurately represent the disease. Patient derived xenograft (PDX) models of CNS metastasis have been shown to better represent the phenotypic and molecular characteristics of the human disease, as well as better reflect the heterogeneity and clonal dynamics of human patient tumors compared to historic cell line models. There are multiple sites that can be used to implant patient-derived tissue when setting up preclinical trials, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, and each suited for studying different aspects of the metastatic cascade. Here, the protocol describes how to establish PDX models and present three different approaches for utilizing CNS metastasis PDX models in pre-clinical studies, discussing each of their applications and limitations. These include flank implantation, orthotopic injection in the brain, and intracardiac injection. Subcutaneous flank implantation is the easiest to monitor and, therefore, most convenient for pre-clinical studies. In addition, metastases to brain and other tissues from flank implantation were observed, indicating that the tumor has undergone multiple steps of metastasis, including intravasation, extravasation, and colonization. Orthotopic injection in the brain is the best option for recapitulating the brain tumor microenvironment and is useful for determining the efficacy of biologics to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) but bypasses most steps of the metastatic cascade. Intracardiac injection facilitates metastasis to the brain and is also useful for studying organ tropism. While this method forgoes earlier steps of the metastatic cascade, these cells will still have to survive circulation, extravasate, and colonize. The utility of a PDX model, is therefore, impacted by the route of tumor inoculation and the choice of which one to utilize should be dictated by the scientific question and overall goals of the experiment.

Central nervous system metastasis PDX models represent the phenotypic and molecular characteristics of human metastasis, making them excellent models for preclinical studies. Described here is how to establish PDX models and the inoculation routes that are best used for preclinical studies.

The development of novel therapies for central nervous system (CNS) metastasis has been hindered by the lack of preclinical models that accurately ...

Zebrafish Larvae as a Model to Evaluate Potential Radiosensitizers or Protectors

Zebrafish are extensively used in several kinds of research because they are one of the easily maintained vertebrate models and exhibit several features of a unique and convenient model system. As highly proliferative cells are more susceptible to radiation-induced DNA damage, zebrafish embryos are a front-line in vivo model in radiation research. In addition, this model projects the effect of radiation and different drugs within a short time, along with major biological events and associated responses. Several cancer studies have used zebrafish, and this protocol is based on the use of radiation modifiers in the context of radiotherapy and cancer. This method can be readily used to validate the effects of different drugs on irradiated and control (non-irradiated) embryos, thus identifying drugs as radio sensitizing or protective drugs. Although this methodology is used in most drug screening experiments, the details of the experiment and the toxicity assessment with the background of X-ray radiation exposure are limited or only briefly addressed, making it difficult to perform. This protocol addresses this issue and discusses the procedure and toxicity evaluation with a detailed illustration. The procedure describes a simple approach for using zebrafish embryos for radiation studies and radiation-based drug screening with much reliability and reproducibility.

The zebrafish has recently been exploited as a model to validate potential radiation modifiers. The present protocol describes the detailed steps to use zebrafish embryos for radiation-based screening experiments and some observational approaches to evaluate the effect of different treatments and radiation.

Zebrafish are extensively used in several kinds of research because they are one of the easily maintained vertebrate models and exhibit several features ...

Assessment of Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cell-Associated Toxicities Using an Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Patient-Derived Xenograft Mouse Model

Chimeric antigen receptor T (CART) cell therapy has emerged as a powerful tool for the treatment of multiple types of CD19+ malignancies, which has led to the recent FDA approval of several CD19-targeted CART (CART19) cell therapies. However, CART cell therapy is associated with a unique set of toxicities that carry their own morbidity and mortality. This includes cytokine release syndrome (CRS) and neuroinflammation (NI). The use of preclinical mouse models has been crucial in the research and development of CART technology for assessing both CART efficacy and CART toxicity. The available preclinical models to test this adoptive cellular immunotherapy include syngeneic, xenograft, transgenic, and humanized mouse models. There is no single model that seamlessly mirrors the human immune system, and each model has strengths and weaknesses. This methods paper aims to describe a patient-derived xenograft model using leukemic blasts from patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia as a strategy to assess CART19-associated toxicities, CRS, and NI. This model has been shown to recapitulate CART19-associated toxicities as well as therapeutic efficacy as seen in the clinic.

Here, we describe a protocol in which an acute lymphoblastic leukemia patient-derived xenograft model is used as a strategy to assess and monitor CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor T cell-associated toxicities.

Chimeric antigen receptor T (CART) cell therapy has emerged as a powerful tool for the treatment of multiple types of CD19+ malignancies, which has led to ...