Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Tumour growth is critically dependent on blood perfusion, its source of oxygen and nutrients. Therefore, tumour vascularization has become an attractive target for the treatment of many cancers types. The study of endocrine-responsive tumours, in particular, needs improved platforms to screen drugs targeting vascularization that have better resolution and that do not compromise on inter-individual variability.

Aim: Hence, we’ve set out to develop a novel in vivolongitudinal platform that allows us to directly track both tumour growth and vascularization in the same individual overtime.

Methods: This was achieved by, firstly, fluorescently tagging a mouse renal adenocarcinoma cell line (Renca) that has been shown to mimic the human renal cell carcinoma growth, which is known to have a hormone-related aetiology. Secondly, in order to keep the tumour size uniform across experiments, we’ve generated tumour spheroids in vitro out of Renca cells following previously published protocols. Then, the spheroids were transplanted into the anterior chamber of the eye (ACE), a known immune-privileged site and natural window to the body, of host transgenic mice that have fluorescent blood vessels. Lastly, tumour growth and vascularization were monitored in each individual overtime through repeated intra-vital fluorescent imaging.

Results: So far, we’ve verified that upon transplantation into the ACE, the in vitro generated Renca spheroids can successfully engraft, vascularize and grow overtime. In future experiments we aim to evaluate the tumours response to predefined hormones that are known to impact renal cell carcinoma growth, and to test how already validated anti-vascularization drugs affect these tumours.