New preclinical mouse model: Patient-derived xenografts / 肿瘤

ABSTRACT

The mouse models of nude mice bearing subcutaneous xenografts derived from tumor cell lines provide a preclinical testing system for exploring novel anticancer therapies. However, due to the lack of heterogeneity and an ability of spontaneous distant metastasis, these traditional models are difficult to accurately simulate the clinical condition of the patient. Recently, some researchers have developed better preclinical models by using patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) in mice. It has been shown that transplanting a variety of patient-derived tumor tissues into an appropriate anatomical site of immunocompromised or transgenic mice can authentically mimic the primary tumor in patients, especially with distant metastatic ability. PDXs can not only faithfully preserve the molecular phenotypes and genomic alterations of the primary tumors in patients, but also reproduce the heterogeneity of primary tumors; therefore, PDXs have been used in investigation of mechanism of drug resistance. This review summarizes the methodology of establishing PDXs, verification of similarity in original tumor and the corresponding xenograft, and the value and limitations of PDXs used in the development of new drugs. Copyright © 2014 by TUMOR.