Open AccessAbstract 2768: A novel non-terminal tumor sampling procedure using fine needle aspiration supports biomarker discovery
Author(s) -
Suzanne I. Sitnikova,
Sophie Munnings-Tomes,
Stacy Kentner,
Kathy Mulgrew,
Judit Espana-Agusti,
Tianhui Zhang,
Kristina M. Ilieva,
Hormas Ghadially,
Matthew Robinson,
Robert W. Wilkinson,
Simon J. Dovedi
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
cancer research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Conference proceedings
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1538-7445
pISSN - 0008-5472
DOI - 10.1158/1538-7445.am2021-2768
Subject(s) - tumor microenvironment , immunotherapy , medicine , sampling (signal processing) , biomarker , biomarker discovery , cancer , pathology , computational biology , oncology , biology , computer science , biochemistry , filter (signal processing) , gene , proteomics , computer vision
Immunotherapy is part of the standard of care for oncology however, durable objective responses remain limited to a subset of patients. As such there is a crucial need to identify biomarkers that can predict/enrich for treatment response. So far, the majority of proposed biomarkers consist of features of the tumor microenvironment (TME). However, in preclinical mouse models, the collection of tumor tissue for this type of analysis is a terminal procedure obviating the ability to directly link potential biomarkers to response/outcome following treatment. Therefore, we have developed and validated a novel non-terminal tumor sampling method to biopsy the TME in mouse models based on fine needle aspiration. We show that this technique enables repeated in-life sampling of subcutaneous flank tumors without impacting tumor growth or animal welfare. This method yields sufficient sample for flow cytometric analysis of tumor-infiltrating immune cells and we demonstrate that it is able to recapitulate results obtained with the current methodology of whole tumor analysis. We propose that this method represents a simple, fast, minimally invasive technique to enable analysis of the TME, reduction in the number of animals used for preclinical oncology studies and refinement of pharmacodynamic analysis. Additionally, its unique ability to provide longitudinal TME sampling can support investigation of biomarkers of response to treatment. Citation Format: Suzanne I. Sitnikova, Sophie Munnings-Tomes, Stacy R. Kentner, Kathy Mulgrew, Judit Espana-Agusti, Tianhui Zhang, Kristina M. Ilieva, Hormas M. Ghadially, Matthew J. Robinson, Robert W. Wilkinson, Simon J. Dovedi. A novel non-terminal tumor sampling procedure using fine needle aspiration supports biomarker discovery [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021; 2021 Apr 10-15 and May 17-21. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(13_Suppl):Abstract nr 2768.