[Application and development of patient-derived tumor xenograft model in translational medicine of tumor].

Development of novel drugs is an integral part of the translational medicine in the field of cancer research, and the construction and application of preclinical animal models play vital roles in drugs development. Patient-derived tumor xenograft models (PDX) have been shown to be more accurate in prediction of clinical outcomes of novel drugs and are being used for preclinical drug evaluation based on the fact that PDX models mostly retain the principal histologic and genetic characteristics of their donor tumor. To set up PDX model, primary or metastatic tumor are achieved to translate into immune-deficiency mice. The tumor in immune-deficiency mouse is acquired to translate to other immune-deficiency mouse to generate stable PDX model, which usually is affected by the strain of mouse, translation method and translation location in mouse. PDX models recapitulate the same histology and gene expression as the original patients' carcinoma. PDX models can accurately predict the effectiveness of novel drugs, screen more predictive biomarker for drug resistance and optimize the use of classic drugs in clinic. However, sole source of surgical resection of tumor, long time of construction, high failure rate and hardly used in evaluating immune drugs would be the barriers to be overcome to improve PDX models. The methodological issues, salient features, practical applications, and future directions of PDX models will be illustrated.