Establishment of a patient derived xenograft mouse model of lung cancer

Objective To establish a patient-derived xenograft (PDX) model library of lung cancer, and to compare the biological consistency between primary tumors and passaged tumors, at the same time to find the key factors affecting the formation of PDX tumor. Methods Fresh surgical or biopsy samples from lung cancer patients were collected and subcutaneously transplanted into immunodeficient mouse model (NOD-Prkdcnull-Il2rgnull) to establish the PDX model and then passaged with 3-5 generation. Structure and cell morphology, and biomarkers of passages of PDX tumor tissue and primary tumor tissue were compared. Combined with patients’ clinical data, key factors affecting the tumor take rate were analyzed. Results a total of 195 lung cancer samples were collected and 59 cases of lung cancer PDX were successfully established. The rate of PDX tumor formation was 29.65%. The pathological analysis results of the tumor samples from all the tumor models of PDX were consistent with the corresponding primary tumors. The key factors affecting the take rate and tumor formation time were pathological types of primary tumors. The take rate of adenocarcinoma was 14.75% whereas the take rate of squamous cell carcinoma was 56.60%. Conclusion The library of lung cancer PDX models we have established retained the key features of primary cancers, providing an effective resource for research and development of drug efficacy evaluation in pre-clinical trial and identification of biomarkers for drug responsiveness. Key words: Lung cancer; Patient derived xenograft; Mouse model; Take rate