Xenotransplantability of Human Cancers in Mice

Extract

The recent correspondence by Tokunaga et al. ( 1 ) provides evidence that angiogenic factors do not play an important role in xenotransplantation of human colon cancer. We also studied whether xenotransplantability of human lung cancers in nude mice is affected by angiogenic factors. During the period from August 1980 through October 1982, 155 primary lung tumors were obtained by surgical removal from patients treated at the Chest-Hospital Heidelberg for inoculation into nude mice as described below ( 2 ) . All procedures in this study were approved by the institutional review board and were performed after appropriate consents were obtained.

For transplantation, the tumor specimens were finely minced with scissors and suspended in Hanks' balanced salt solution. Enough medium was added to reach a tissue-to-medium ratio of 1:3 (vol/vol). Three hundred microliters of each suspension (>107 cells per mouse) was injected subcutaneously into the flanks of three nude mice each with a 1.4-mm trochar needle. Tumor take was assumed when the presence of growing nodule(s) was noted within 3 months and tumor histology was confirmed.