Development of a patient-derived xenograft model of glioblastoma via intravitreal injection in mice

Abstract

Brain cancer: A clearer view of glioblastoma An improved strategy for cultivating patient-derived tumors in mice gives researchers a faster, more accurate means for testing glioblastoma treatments. Such ‘xenograft’ models are powerful tools for characterizing a patient’s cancer, but current cultivation techniques are too slow or fail to capture key features of this deadly disease. Researchers led by Jeong Hun Kim and Sun Ha Paek at Seoul National University Hospital in South Korea have demonstrated that glioblastoma cells injected into the mouse eye produce growths that mirror key characteristics of the original tumor. The tissue environment of the retina is physiologically similar to that of the brain, and cancer cells injected into the eye form glioblastoma-like tumors twice as quickly as the same cells injected into the skull. This means clinical researchers can assess drug response and accordingly adjust patient care more quickly.