School of Life Science and Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan.
Center for Molecular Medicine, Jichi Medical University, Tochigi, Japan.
Methods Mol Biol. 2021;2274:37-42. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1258-3_4.
The current standard murine model of bone metastasis by using intracardiac injection (IC) has some limitations despite the great utility of this model. This fact emphasizes the need for a new murine model to accelerate basic research of bone metastasis. The present protocol provides instructions on caudal artery (CA) injection that is an easy-to-use method to reliably construct a murine bone metastasis model with a variety type of cancer cell lines. Bioluminescence imaging visualized that cancer cells injected via the caudal artery in the tail were efficiently delivered to a hind limb bone, where it is a common site affected with bone metastasis in mice. CA injection rarely causes stress-induced acute death in mice and enables us to inject a large number of cancer cells, thereby greatly increasing the frequency of bone metastasis in hind limb bones. Importantly, CA injection is technically as easy as tail vein injection and causes no lethal stress, indicating that it is a model that also contributes to animal welfare. CA injection model, therefore, could represent a powerful tool for many researchers to study molecular mechanisms of bone metastasis in mice.
目前，通过心脏内注射（IC）建立的骨转移小鼠模型虽然具有很大的应用价值，但仍存在一些局限性。这一事实强调了需要建立一种新的小鼠模型来加速骨转移的基础研究。本方案提供了关于尾动脉（CA）注射的说明，这是一种简单易用的方法，可以可靠地构建多种癌细胞系的小鼠骨转移模型。生物发光成像显示，通过尾巴的尾动脉注射的癌细胞可有效地递送到后肢骨，这是小鼠中常见的受骨转移影响的部位。CA 注射很少导致小鼠应激诱导的急性死亡，并使我们能够注射大量的癌细胞，从而大大增加了后肢骨的骨转移频率。重要的是，CA 注射在技术上与尾静脉注射一样简单，不会引起致命的应激，这表明它也是一种有助于动物福利的模型。因此，CA 注射模型可以为许多研究人员提供一种强大的工具，用于研究小鼠骨转移的分子机制。
