Primary Orthotopic Glioma Xenografts Recapitulate Infiltrative Growth and Isocitrate Dehydrogenase I Mutation

Malignant gliomas constitute a heterogeneous group of highly infiltrative glial neoplasms with distinct clinical and molecular features. Primary orthotopic xenografts recapitulate the histopathological and molecular features of malignant glioma subtypes in preclinical animal models. To model WHO grades III and IV malignant gliomas in transplantation assays, human tumor cells are xenografted into an orthotopic site, the brain, of immunocompromised mice. In contrast to secondary xenografts that utilize cultured tumor cells, human glioma cells are dissociated from resected specimens and transplanted without prior passage in tissue culture to generate primary xenografts. The procedure in this report details tumor sample preparation, intracranial transplantation into immunocompromised mice, monitoring for tumor engraftment and tumor harvesting for subsequent passage into recipient animals or analysis. Tumor cell preparation requires 2 hr and surgical procedure requires 20 min/animal.