Clinically relevant treatment of PDX models reveals patterns of neuroblastoma chemoresistance.

Chemotherapy resistance and relapses are common in high-risk neuroblastoma (NB). Here, we developed a clinically relevant in vivo treatment protocol mimicking the first-line five-chemotherapy treatment regimen of high-risk NB and applied this protocol to mice with MYCN-amplified NB patient-derived xenografts (PDXs). Genomic and transcriptomic analyses were used to reveal NB chemoresistance mechanisms. Intrinsic resistance was associated with high genetic diversity and an embryonic phenotype. Relapsed NB with acquired resistance showed a decreased adrenergic phenotype and an enhanced immature mesenchymal-like phenotype, resembling multipotent Schwann cell precursors. NBs with a favorable treatment response presented a lineage-committed adrenergic phenotype similar to normal neuroblasts. Novel integrated phenotypic gene signatures reflected treatment response and patient prognosis. NB organoids established from relapsed PDX tumors retained drug resistance, tumorigenicity, and transcriptional cell states. This work sheds light on the mechanisms of NB chemotherapy response and emphasizes the importance of transcriptional cell states in chemoresistance.

Effect of Heat-Inactivated Clostridium sporogenes and Its Conditioned Media on 3-Dimensional Colorectal Cancer Cell Models.

Traditional cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy continue to have limited efficacy due to tumor hypoxia. While bacterial cancer therapy has the potential to overcome this problem, it comes with the risk of toxicity and infection. To circumvent these issues, this paper investigates the anti-tumor effects of non-viable bacterial derivatives of Clostridium sporogenes. These non-viable derivatives are heat-inactivated C. sporogenes bacteria (IB) and the secreted bacterial proteins in culture media, known as conditioned media (CM). In this project, the effects of IB and CM on CT26 and HCT116 colorectal cancer cells were examined on a 2-Dimensional (2D) and 3-Dimensional (3D) platform. IB significantly inhibited cell proliferation of CT26 to 6.3% of the control in 72 hours for the 2D monolayer culture. In the 3D spheroid culture, cell proliferation of HCT116 spheroids notably dropped to 26.2%. Similarly the CM also remarkably reduced the cell-proliferation of the CT26 cells to 2.4% and 20% in the 2D and 3D models, respectively. Interestingly the effect of boiled conditioned media (BCM) on the cells in the 3D model was less inhibitory than that of CM. Thus, the inhibitive effect of inactivated C. sporogenes and its conditioned media on colorectal cancer cells is established.