Real-time intravital imaging of cancer models

High-resolution intravital imaging (IVM) has proven to be a powerful technique to visualise dynamic processes that are important for tumour progression, such as the interplay between tumour cells and cellular components of the tumour microenvironment. The development of IVM tools, including imaging windows and photo-marking of individual cells, has led to the visualisation of dynamic processes and tracking of individual cells over a time span of days. In order to visualise these dynamic processes, several strategies have been described to develop fluorescent IVM tumour models. Genetic tools to engineer fluorescent tumour cell lines have advanced the applications of cell line-based tumour models to study, for example, changes in behaviour or transcriptional and differentiation state of individual cells in a tumour. In order to study tumour progression, fluorescent genetic mouse models have been engineered that better recapitulate human tumours. These technically challenging tumour models are key in visualising dynamic processes during cancer progression and in the translational aspects of IVM experiments.