Annual Report 2018
Section of Support of Animal Experimentation
Toshio Imai
Introduction
The pivotal role of the Section of Support of Animal Experimentation is to establish animal/ cell culture models (Patient-derived Xenograft- PDX, 3D-cultured organoids, 2D-cultured fibroblasts), which might 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 Tsukiji translational research (TR) group. In vivo and in vitro models derived from clinical tumor specimens are considered to reflect a more accurate environment of cancer tissues in humans 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 are now attempting to reveal their characteristics.
Ther team and what we do
The establishment and characterization of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) and/or 3D-cultured organoid models of various types of cancers by our team will accumulate knowledge and experience of case-by-case methodologies for their 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 organoids 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 consider biological safety in handling not only surgical specimens themselves but also PDX and related-biological resources. We contribute to consolidate the facility and rules to preserve such biological safety of an experiment environment and to conduct training for researchers and technical experts on animal experiments.