A syngeneic Lewis LLC1 mouse model for preclinical immuno-oncology testing of novel anti-cancer strategies
10 / 07 / 2021
Lung cancer is tragically amongst the deadliest types of cancer likely because of aggressive tumor growth and lack of adequate therapies. While lung cancer indeed benefits from improved treatment options, diagnosis occurs once the cancer has advanced and only a very small proportion of cases are identified at an early stage, which makes long-term treatment benefits extremely difficult to be reached.
Figure 1: Lewis LLC1 lung tumor model displays a noticeable sensitivity to cyclophosphamide (CPH), while remains non-responsive to PD1 blockade. Individual tumor volume (mm3) (A) and Kaplan-Meier plot survival (B) of LLC1 tumor-bearing mice upon vehicle, CPH, anti-PD1 antibody or combination treatment. While being insensitive to the PD1 blocker, LLC1 tumors are responsive to the alkylating anticancer reference agent, and their response level still offers sufficient dynamic range to evaluate novel combination therapies.
Figure 2: Lewis LLC1 tumor-bearing model is characterized by an abundance of immunosuppressive myeloid cells. Immune cell FACS-based profiling of Lewis LLC1 tumor model shows – mainly – that i) the model is characterized by an increase and decrease of circulating immunosuppressive MDSC and T cells, respectively (A), and that ii) immune cells infiltrating the tumor are overwhelmingly myeloids with a high proportion of granulocytic MDSC (B).