Preclinical Models of Malignant Mesothelioma

Abstract

Rodent models of malignant mesothelioma help facilitate the understanding of the biology of this highly lethal cancer and to develop and test new interventions. Introducing the same genetic lesions as found in human mesothelioma in mice results in tumors that show close resemblance with the human disease counterpart. This includes the extensive inflammatory responses that characterize human malignant mesothelioma. The relatively fast development of mesothelioma in mice when the appropriate combination of lesions is introduced, with or without exposure to asbestos, make the autochthonous models particularly useful for testing new treatment strategies in an immunocompetent setting, whereas Patient-Derived Xenograft models are particularly useful to assess effects of inter- and intra-tumor heterogeneity and human-specific features of mesothelioma. It is to be expected that new insights obtained by studying these experimental systems will lead to new more effective treatments for this devastating disease.

Keywords: conditional tumor suppressor gene knockout/oncogene mouse models; genetic driver lesions; in vivo asbestos carcinogenesis; malignant mesothelioma; mesothelioma inflammatory phenotype; patient-derived xenograft models of mesothelioma; preclinical rodent models.