Cell lines of conjunctival tumours and their potential use in research

Abstract

SummaryConjunctival melanoma is a rare malignancy, which may give rise to metastases. An effective treatment of these metastases is as yet lacking. Conjunctival melanoma have been found to share specific mutations with cutaneous melanoma, such as mutations in the BRAF genes. As specific treatments have been developed for cutaneous melanoma, one can either try these in patients, or find ways to screen drugs in models of conjunctival melanoma. Models include the use of conjunctiva melanoma cell lines, which can be grown in vitro or as xenografts in immunodeficient mice, in zebrafish, or in egg embryos. As there are only a few cell lines available, one may consider developing xenografts from freshly‐obtained conjunctival melanoma, and then try to grow new cell lines, or trst drugs directly on these xenografts.Using three cell lines with different growth characteristics, we studied the effect of several drugs on cell growth and apoptosis, and we determined immunological characteristics of these cell lines.