title: In vivo echographic evidence of tumoral vascularization and microenvironment interactions in metastatic orthotopic human neuroblastoma xenografts.
abstract: Human neuroblastoma (NB) is the second most frequent solid tumor of childhood and represents a highly heterogeneous disease at clinical and biologic levels. Little progress has been made to improve the poor prognosis of patients with high-stage NB. Tumor progression and metastatic dissemination still represent major obstacles to the successful treatment of advanced stage disease. In order to develop and evaluate new, targeted, therapeutic strategies, fully defined and biologically relevant in vivo models of NB are strongly needed. We have developed an orthotopic model of metastatic human NB in the nude mouse, using 2 well-characterized NB cell lines. Tumor growth, vascular properties and metastatic patterns were investigated using a sensitive and newly developed in vivo echographic technology in addition to immunohistochemistry and PCR analyses. Results show that implantation of low numbers of NB cells directly into the adrenal gland of nude mice resulted in rapid and homogeneous tumor growth without tumor morbidity. Nude mice were shown to rapidly develop highly vascularized adrenal tumors that selectively metastasized to the liver and bone marrow. In addition, the newly formed mouse vessels in orthotopic but not in heterotopic tumors, were found to express the highly angiogenic alphavbeta3 integrin marker, indicating the development of a truly malignant neovasculature in orthotopic conditions only. This observation confirms the impact of the regional microenvironment on tumor biology and suggests the existence of cross-talk with the tumor cells. In conclusion, such model faithfully reproduces the growth, vascular and metastatic patterns as observed in patients. It therefore represents a powerful and biologically relevant tool to improve our understanding of the biology of NB and to develop and assess new antiangiogenic and metastasis-targeted therapies.
authors.affiliation: Département d'Oncologie Pédiatrique, Unité Propre de Recherche de l'Enseignement Supérieur EA3535, Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France. jjoseph@hospvd.ch
authors.forename: Jean-Marc
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Joseph
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gross
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Lassau
authors.forename: Valérie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Rouffiac
authors.forename: Paule
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Opolon
authors.forename: Lysiane
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Laudani
authors.forename: Katya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Auderset
authors.forename: Jean-François
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Geay
authors.forename: Annick
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mühlethaler-Mottet
authors.forename: Gilles
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vassal
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002455:Cell Division; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D002648:Child; D017930:Genes, Reporter; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008813:Mice, Inbred ICR; D008819:Mice, Nude; D016513:Mice, SCID; D008833:Microcirculation / Q000473:pathology; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009389:Neovascularization, Pathologic / Q000473:pathology*; D009447:Neuroblastoma / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000473:pathology*; D014162:Transfection; D014183:Transplantation, Heterologous
chemical_list: D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins