Annual Report 2017
Section of Support of Animal Experimentation
Toshio Imai
Introduction
The pivotal role of the Support of Animal Experimentation is to establish animal/cell culture models (Patient-derived Xenograft-PDX, 3D-cultured organoids, 2D-cultured fibroblasts), which may be accelerative to obtain non-clinical proof of concept (POC) for the development of novel anti-cancer drug candidates in the Exploratory Oncology Research & Clinical Trial Center (EPOC), particularly at the Tsukiji campus translational research (TR) group. In vivo and in vitro models derived from clinical tumor specimens are considered to reflect more accurate environment of cancer tissues in human as compared to models using conventionally established cancer cell lines. On the other hand, comparative analyses of PDX and 3D-cultured systems have not yet been completely conducted, and we now attempt to reveal their characteristics.
Our team and what we do
The establishment and characterization of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) and/or 3D-cultured organoid models of variety types of cancers in our team will accumulate knowledge and experience of case-by-case methodologies for the establishment and construct a systematic library of PDX/organoids with omics-based data sets.
Research activities
The NCC Oncopanel analysis revealed that mutated genes found in PDX/3D-cultured organoid were sometimes different from those in original clinical cancer specimens. The cause of such changes is considered partly to be tumor heterogeneity and/or selective growth of tumor cells. We attempt to accumulate omics data of PDX/3D-cultured organoid models and utilize them as basic information for TR.
Education
It is important to make consideration for biological safety in handling not only of surgical specimens themselves but also of PDX and related-biological resources. We contribute to consolidate facilities and rules to preserve such biological safety of experiment environment and to conduct training for researchers and technical experts on animal experiments.