Patient-Derived Xenografting of Human Melanoma

Abstract

A key requirement for improving cancer outcomes is the development of models that recapitulate biological and molecular characteristics of human disease. In melanoma, with the emergence of immune-based therapies and of targeted therapies against defined oncogenic mechanisms, development of clinically relevant models of the disease is a higher priority than ever. This chapter examines the essential features and applications of a particular type of modeling called patient-derived xenografting (PDX), in which patient cancer cells (in this case melanoma cells) are injected into immunocompromised mice to form tumors. Using optimized PDX melanoma assays, which are more efficient than comparable as..