Teams led by Associate Professors Mgr. Karel Souček, Ph.D., and Mgr. Jan Bouchal, Ph.D., involved in the National Institute for Cancer Research (NICR), in collaboration with the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute, have described a new experimental model derived from circulating tumor cells obtained from a patient with metastatic breast cancer. Both the xenograft and the subsequent cell cultures retained tumorigenic and metastatic potential, enabling researchers to test their sensitivity to anticancer treatment. The model could contribute to the study of the biological plasticity of circulating tumor cells as well as to the preclinical evaluation of new therapeutic strategies.
The research brought together expertise in experimental oncology, molecular pathology, and clinical oncology. Scientists from the Institute of Biophysics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, St. Anne’s University Hospital in Brno (FNUSA-ICRC), Masaryk University, the Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute, and Palacký University Olomouc also contributed to the project. The findings were published in May in the British Journal of Cancer.
Source: www.tribune.cz