An orthotopic and osteolytic model with a newly established oral squamous cell carcinoma cell line.

OBJECTIVE

Despite the availability of advanced clinical diagnostic systems, the overall 5-year survival rate for patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) has remained relatively poor over the past 2 decades. Appropriate animal models need to be developed according to the specific purpose of cancer research. However, most of the currently available oral cancer cell lines do not precisely reflect the characteristics of bone-invasive OSCC and cannot serve as suitable tools in the development of new therapeutic reagents against bone-invasive OSCC. Here, we assessed the orthotopic and osteolytic mouse model with newly established OSCC cell line.

DESIGN

We assessed the orthotopic and osteolytic mouse model using the newly established OSCC cells. In addition, the incidences of tumorigenesis and histopathological results were determined.

RESULTS

The newly established YD-39 cell line grows in a monolayer sheet and has highly invasive. The transplanted YD-39 cells developed stable tumours in the tongues and calvaria region of the nude mice. The tumours in nude mice grafted with YD-39 cells had a high incidence of transplantability in both mouse models tested and a similar morphology to their respective original tumour. Therefore, both animal models might be feasible animal models to assess the efficacy of anti-cancer drugs.

CONCLUSIONS

This type of animal model approach might be has the added advantage of potentially accelerating the biological discovery process.