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Assessing tumors in living animals through measurement of urinary β-human chorionic gonadotropin

Nature Medicine volume 6, pages 711–714 (2000)Cite this article

There is no tool more essential to cancer research than the experimental tumor. Every therapeutic and preventative strategy uses such tumors, and tumors growing in animals are instrumental for basic studies of cancer biology1,2,3. Most experimental tumors are injected subcutaneously because subsequent growth can be followed visually. However, it would often be preferable to have tumors grow internally, in an environment that more closely mimics that of naturally occurring tumors4,5,6. Mice with internal tumors are generally killed at the end of an experimental protocol to determine how the tumors have responded. Only a single time point can be assessed through this approach, and multiple animals at each time point must be assessed to evaluate the kinetics of tumor growth and the effects of treatment. To overcome these problems, we sought to develop a system for monitoring internal tumor growth that would provide a quantitative measure of neoplastic cell content, be cost-effective and simple to implement, and be broadly applicable to diverse tumor types and hosts. The system described here, incorporating the measurement of urinary β-human chorionic gonadotropin secreted from tumors engineered to express this protein, seems to meet these objectives.

β-hCG as a tumor marker

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Figure 1: Immunostaining of β-hCG in EMT6-CG cells.
Figure 2: Mouse urine collection system.
Figure 3: Time course of urinary β-hCG after tumor cell inoculation.
Figure 4: Relationship between urinary β-hCG levels and tumor weights.
Figure 5: β-hCG levels after therapy.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center Cell Imaging Core Facility for help with photography. This work was supported by the Clayton Fund and National Institutes of Health grants CA 57345, CA 43460 and CA 62924.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, 21231, Maryland, USA

    Ie-Ming Shih, Christopher Torrance, Daniel W. Chan, Kenneth W. Kinzler & Bert Vogelstein

  2. Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, 21231, Maryland, USA

    Ie-Ming Shih, Lori J. Sokoll & Daniel W. Chan

  3. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, 21231, Maryland, USA

    Bert Vogelstein

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  1. Ie-Ming Shih
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Correspondence to Bert Vogelstein.

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Shih, IM., Torrance, C., Sokoll, L. et al. Assessing tumors in living animals through measurement of urinary β-human chorionic gonadotropin. Nat Med 6, 711–714 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/76299

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