Elimination of fluorescent protein immunogenicity permits modeling of metastasis in immune-competent settings

Transplantation models allow one to faithfully recapitulate the clinical course of metastatic disease, functionally screen for regulators of dormancy and metastasis, and conduct gold-standard assessment of metastasis-initiating potential ( Quintana et al., 2008 Quintana E. Shackleton M. Sabel M.S. Fullen D.R. Johnson T.M. Morrison S.J. Efficient tumour formation by single human melanoma cells. Nature. 2008; 456: 593-598https://doi.org/10.1038/nature07567 Crossref PubMed Scopus (1473) Google Scholar ). Historically, these studies have been conducted in immune-compromised settings. Given the need to understand how tumor-stroma-immune axes influence progression and augment response to radiotherapies, chemotherapies, and immunotherapies, such studies are now conducted in immune-competent settings with greater frequency. Here, we have run into a significant issue. Recognition of observer effect is required for rigor and reproducibility of preclinical animal studiesDay et al.Cancer CellFebruary 17, 2022In BriefRigor and reproducibility in animal experimentation are of great concern for the scientific community, and this has recently been addressed by the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH: http://acd.od.nih.gov/working-groups/eprar.html ). A timely example was recently published by Grzelak et al. in Cancer Cell, where they reemphasized how immunogenicity of xenobiotic marker genes can distort the outcome of experiments that involve murine cancer cell lines implanted into syngeneic immunocompetent hosts. Full-Text PDF