Defining Gene Functions in Tumorigenesis by Ex vivo Ablation of Floxed Alleles in Malignant Peripheral Nerve Sheath Tumor Cells

The development of new drugs that precisely target key proteins in human cancers is fundamentally altering cancer therapeutics. However, before these drugs can be used, their target proteins must be validated as therapeutic targets in specific cancer types. This validation is often performed by knocking out the gene encoding the candidate therapeutic target in a genetically engineered mouse (GEM) model of cancer and determining what effect this has on tumor growth. Unfortunately, technical issues such as embryonic lethality in conventional knockouts and mosaicism in conditional knockouts often limit this approach. To overcome these limitations, an approach to ablating a floxed embryonic lethal gene of interest in short-term cultures of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors (MPNSTs) generated in a GEM model was developed.

This paper describes how to establish a mouse model with the appropriate genotype, derive short-term tumor cultures from these animals, and then ablate the floxed embryonic lethal gene using an adenoviral vector that expresses Cre recombinase and enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP). Purification of cells transduced with adenovirus using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and the quantification of the effects that gene ablation exerts on cellular proliferation, viability, the transcriptome, and orthotopic allograft growth is then detailed. These methodologies provide an effective and generalizable approach to identifying and validating therapeutic targets in vitro and in vivo. These approaches also provide a renewable source of low-passage tumor-derived cells with reduced in vitro growth artifacts. This allows the biological role of the targeted gene to be studied in diverse biologic processes such as migration, invasion, metastasis, and intercellular communication mediated by the secretome.