Experimental and spontaneous metastasis assays can result in divergence in clonal architecture
Details
Publication Year 2023-08-07,Volume 6,Issue #1,Page 821
Journal Title
Communications Biology
Publication Type
Research article
Abstract
Intratumoural heterogeneity is associated with poor outcomes in breast cancer. To understand how malignant clones survive and grow in metastatic niches, in vivo models using cell lines and patient-derived xenografts (PDX) have become the gold standard. Injections of cancer cells in orthotopic sites (spontaneous metastasis assays) or into the vasculature (experimental metastasis assays) have been used interchangeably to study the metastatic cascade from early events or post-intravasation, respectively. However, less is known about how these different routes of injection impact heterogeneity. Herein we directly compared the clonality of spontaneous and experimental metastatic assays using the human cell line MDA-MB-231 and a PDX model. Genetic barcoding was used to study the fitness of the subclones in primary and metastatic sites. Using spontaneous assays, we found that intraductal injections resulted in less diverse tumours compared to other routes of injections. Using experimental metastasis assays via tail vein injection of barcoded MDA-MB-231 cells, we also observed an asymmetry in metastatic heterogeneity between lung and liver that was not observed using spontaneous metastasis assays. These results demonstrate that these assays can result in divergent clonal outputs in terms of metastatic heterogeneity and provide a better understanding of the biases inherent to each technique.
Publisher
Springer Nature
Keywords
Humans; Female; *Lung Neoplasms/pathology; *Breast Neoplasms/genetics/pathology; Lung/pathology; Liver/pathology; Clone Cells/pathology
Department(s)
Laboratory Research
PubMed ID
37550477
Open Access at Publisher's Site
https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05167-5
Terms of Use/Rights Notice
Refer to copyright notice on published article.


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Last Modified: 2023-10-24 04:50:03

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