Alessandrini Francesco, Ceresa Davide, Appolloni Irene, Marubbi Daniela, Malatesta Paolo
Department of Experimental Medicine (DiMES), University of Genoa, Leon Battista Alberti 2, 16132, Genoa-Italy.
IRCCS-AOU San Martino-IST, Largo Rosanna Benzi 10, 16132, Genoa-Italy.
J Cancer. 2016 Aug 12;7(13):1791-1797. doi: 10.7150/jca.15564. eCollection 2016.
Malignant gliomas are the most common and deadly primary malignant brain tumors. In vivo orthotopic models could doubtless represent an appropriate tool to test novel treatment for gliomas. However, methods commonly used to monitor the growth of glioma inside the mouse brain are time consuming and invasive. We tested the reliability of a minimally invasive procedure, based on a secreted luciferase (Gaussia luciferase), to frequently monitor the changes of glioma size. Gluc activity was evaluated from blood samples collected from the tail tip of mice twice a week, allowing to make a growth curve for the tumors. We validated the correlation between Gluc activity and tumor size by analysing the tumor after brain dissection. We found that this method is reliable for monitoring human glioma transplanted in immunodeficient mice, but it has strong limitation in immunocompetent models, where an immune response against the luciferase is developed during the first weeks after transplant.
恶性胶质瘤是最常见且致命的原发性恶性脑肿瘤。体内原位模型无疑是测试胶质瘤新疗法的合适工具。然而，常用于监测小鼠脑内胶质瘤生长的方法既耗时又具有侵入性。我们测试了一种基于分泌型荧光素酶（高斯荧光素酶）的微创程序监测胶质瘤大小变化的可靠性。每周两次从小鼠尾尖采集血样评估葡糖醛酸酶（Gluc）活性，从而绘制肿瘤生长曲线。通过在脑解剖后分析肿瘤，我们验证了Gluc活性与肿瘤大小之间的相关性。我们发现该方法对于监测移植到免疫缺陷小鼠体内的人类胶质瘤是可靠的，但在免疫健全模型中存在很大局限性，因为在移植后的头几周会产生针对荧光素酶的免疫反应。
