A reproducible model of intramedullary spinal cord tumor in rats bearing RG2 cells.

Yuandong Zhuang,Chunmei Chen,Wei Zhao,Gangfeng Cai,Chunhua Wang,Weizhong Yang,Rui Wang,Chaofeng Fu,Hao Wei,Weiqiang Zhang,Xinming Huang,Songsheng Shi

doi:10.18632/oncotarget.16045

Abstract

Intramedullary spinal cord tumors (IMSCTs) are lethal diseases to many patients. The lack of adequate animal model has hampered the development of novel treatments. In the current study, a rodent intramedullary glioma model is established to study IMSCT progression. Fischer 344 rats received a intramedullary implantation of RG2 glioma cells. The neurological state of each rat was evaluated on daily basis using the Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan (BBB) scale. Rats implanted with RG2 cells developed significant hind limb paraplegia 20 days after implantation. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans after three weeks revealed significant intramedullary RG2 tumors in the rats. Forty days post implantation, rats were sacrificed for histopathological examination. Neuro-imaging and HE staining cross sections confirmed intramedullary RG2 glioma cells invading to the spinal cord. Thus, our model displayed many of the same invasive characteristics as human IMSCTs. This model should be a reliable and reproducible methodology to correlate well with the features of human IMSCT.

Highlights

Intramedullary spinal cord tumors (IMSCTs) are mainly Intramedullary spinal cord gliomas (IMSCGs), which account for 2–4% of all CNS tumors
Radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy serve as emerging therapies for postoperative management of IMSCGs [1, 2]
The control group revealed no evidence of intramedullary tumors in any of the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images acquired during the study

Summary

Introduction

Intramedullary spinal cord tumors (IMSCTs) are mainly Intramedullary spinal cord gliomas (IMSCGs), which account for 2–4% of all CNS tumors. Surgery tumor resection remains to be the standard care for most intramedullary tumors [3, 6,7,8]. The reported efficacy of surgery resection of IMSCGs between different medical centers varies greatly. The 10-year overall survival rate of patients with lowgrade astrocytomas undergoing postoperative radiation therapy ranges from 40% to 91%. 2-year overall survival rate of patients with high-grade spinal cord astrocytomas receiving postoperative radiation therapy remains zero [3,4,5,6, 9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17]. There are no reports about clearly defined chemotherapy for spinal cord gliomas

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Results

Conclusion