Keio University announced that it has succeeded in completely growing human large intestine tumors outside the body and established a "tumor cell bank" that has the same properties as tumors inside patients.He also demonstrated that by transplanting cultured cells into mice, the tissue structure seen in the patient's body can be reproduced.It will be possible to predict the effect of the drug before administration, and it is expected that it will lead to new drug discovery development and personalized treatment.
The results of this research were published in the online version of the American scientific journal "Cell Stem Cell".
The number of deaths from colorectal cancer continues to increase in Japan.In addition, if the disease progresses to the point where surgery is not possible, a radical treatment method has not been established, and the development of new drugs is being energetically promoted.
A research group led by Associate Professor Toshiro Sato of the same university has developed the world's first technology "organoid" that forms a structure similar to tissue in the living body outside the body, and from this research, it is identified as normal colon stem cell proliferation. It has been clarified that the "proliferation factor" of the above is necessary.However, in order to make use of this in drug discovery for colorectal cancer, it was necessary to develop a technique for culturing colorectal tumors in all patients in vitro.
This time, the research group has succeeded in culturing tumor tissue collected from patients with a combination of different growth factors, and culturing almost all colorectal tumors as organoids for a long period of time and efficiently.Furthermore, 55 types of colon tumor organoids were established by this culture technology.They can also reproduce the same gene expression pattern, tissue structure, and metastatic ability as tumors in patients.
By reproducing the patient's tumor on a culture dish or mouse, it can be applied to the pathophysiology of colorectal cancer and research on new drugs.In addition, by being able to analyze a patient's tumor in a living state, it is a research result that is expected to be applied to the mechanism of metastasis and new drug discovery that overcomes drug resistance in the future.
