The use of SCID mice for the growth of retinoblastoma cell lines and for the establishment of xenografts from primary tumours.

Abstract

We investigated the possibility of growing primary retinoblastoma tumour tissue in SCID mice. In preliminary experiments with the WERI retinoblastoma cell line injected subcutaneously in SCID mice, tumours arose at only 25% of the inoculation sites. After mixing these cells with a reconstituted basement membrane extracellular matrix (Matrigel) prior to inoculation, tumours arose at 100% of inoculated sites. When primary retinoblastoma cells were injected subcutaneously into SCID mice in the presence of Matrigel, tumours arose in 5/8 cases. On average, the latency period was 4 months before the tumours were palpable. Histopathological examination of the tumours showed that they resembled surgically resected human retinoblastomas and one of the tumours formed pseudo-rosettes which is a characteristic of these tumours. Unfortunately, when these xenografted tumours were introduced into tissue culture, it was not possible to establish cell lines directly and the cultures were soon overgrown by mouse cells which could clearly be shown to be infiltrating the tumour. The ability to grow retinoblastoma cell lines and primary tissue subcutaneously in SCID mice offers a convenient model system to study the genetics of tumorigenesis in this tumour type and possibly an opportunity to study the role of chemotherapy in the treatment and progression of the disease.