Abstract 92: Generating new syngeneic models for oral squamous cell carcinoma metastasis study

Abstract

Abstract Cancer metastasis is a complex problem that presents clinical challenges and is the cause of most cancer-related deaths. Mechanistic studies on metastasis hold promise for finding better approaches to control cancer mortality. Oral cavity cancer brings over 200,000 deaths annually and is one of the top eight most frequently diagnosed cancers worldwide. However there is a lack of appropriate experimental models to address oral cancer metastasis. An ideal experimental system should recapitulate the complete process of cancer metastasis in vivo while maintaining molecular-level manipulability. Our current efforts are directed at development of a series of murine oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) cell lines that will be amenable for syngeneic transplantation studies in immuno-competent mice. The cell lines were created from C57BL/6J mice, a strain frequently used in targeted gene manipulation. This strategy ensures that the cells also have utility in orthotopic xenograft cancer models using currently available knockout mice made with a syngeneic background. As abundant knockout mice are available on the C57BL/6J background, our new syngeneic cancer cell lines will greatly facilitate studies on the interrelationship between host and tumor during the process of metastasis. Cell lines were generated from primary murine tongue epithelial cells by hTERT induced immortalization and oncogene induced transformation. They were screened for tumorigenicity and metastasis in both immunocompetent and immunocompromised mice. Properties of in vitro and vivo growth, morphology and cytogenetics were characterized. As proof of concept, one type of gene knockout mouse was used to test transplantation of such new cellular models in vivo to observe the impact of gene loss in the host on the growth and metastasis of tumors. The completion of this project will establish solid and currently unavailable tools for the oral cancer metastasis research community. Citation Format: Zonggao Shi, Jeff Johnson, Yueying Liu, Sharon Stack. Generating new syngeneic models for oral squamous cell carcinoma metastasis study. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 92. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-92