Patient-derived Xenograft (PDX) Models

Preclinical models are critical in the development of human anti-brain tumor drugs. Patient-derived tumor xenograft (PDX) model is a transplanted tumor model formed by implanting tumor tissues and primary cells from patients into immunodeficient mice. The PDX model retains most of the characteristics of the primary tumor at the histopathological, molecular biological, and genetic levels, and has good predictability of clinical efficacy. Therefore, PDX models are increasingly used in many key stages of brain tumor drug development (e.g., drug screening, efficacy validation, clinical trial patient screening, etc.).

Our PDX model-building services for brain tumors

PDX model is one of the most promising models with high tumor heterogeneity, short modeling time, and close to the human tumor microenvironment. Alfa Cytology selects mice with a high degree of immunodeficiency, such as M-NSG/NOD-SCID, and also prepares tumor tissues wrapped with a fetal bovine serum to improve tumorigenicity. The PDX model we constructed not only preserves the heterogeneity of brain tumors, and mutations of key genes but also maintains the relevant activity of each pathway during the transmission process. We have optimized the PDX model to meet your preclinical brain tumor research needs by targeting various issues that may arise in brain tumor research.

The process of building PDX models

We process the obtained brain tumor tissue and implant the brain tumor into mice in the form of fragments or single-cell suspensions. Before implantation or mixed with stromal gel or human fibroblasts and mesenchymal stem cells. Hormones were used after implantation or to improve the success of the PDX model.

Mini patient derived xenograft (MiniPDX) model building

We use a special method to create a pharmacodynamic model by transplanting primary human brain tumor cells into immunodeficient mice. The MiniPDX model allows you to quickly perform drug sensitivity testing on multiple drugs and drug combinations to screen for optimal individualized drug regimens and provide a scientific basis for clinical drug selection. At the same time, the organic combination with the big data analysis of life omics can also promote the in-depth study of brain tumor occurrence, development, and drug resistance mechanism, to achieve more accurate individualized precision medicine for brain tumors.

Advantages

• The results of drug screening using our PDX model correlate with the clinic by up to 85%.
• Our PDX model captures the inter-tumor heterogeneity and intratumor heterogeneity of brain tumors, reflecting the heterogeneity of tumor cells (genomic and epigenetic alterations in different tumor cells) or/and non-tumor cells (e.g., stromal heterogeneity).
• Our PDX model is an important tool for studying tumor-initiating cells (TIC) as well as brain tumor stem cells. It can help you to study the role of TICs in the growth or metastasis of primary brain tumors.
• Our PDX model, constructed using patient brain tumor tissue, can be used as a substitute for in vivo pharmacodynamic testing of different therapeutic agents or regimens in brain tumor patients or can be a perfect stand-in for drug testing.

Applications

• Brain tumor drug development.
• Detection of drug resistance biomarkers.
• Combined clinical trials.
• Precision medicine.

PDX models have the advantages of preserving tumor heterogeneity and having good predictability of clinical efficacy. Alfa Cytology has been attacking the disadvantages of high modeling difficulty and long lead time, and the use of humanized animal models as PDX hosts can also overcome the major disadvantages of immunodeficient mice. Please contact our staff to submit your needs for PDX models for anti-brain tumor drug screening and evaluation, personalized treatment of brain tumor patients, etc.