Assessing the Efficacy of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Preclinical Tumor Models

The identification of novel immune-related targets that can reactivate or enhance antitumor immunity is a very active field of cancer research. In this context, syngeneic tumor models are often used during the preclinical development of immunotherapies to assess their efficacy and analyze the immune system and tumor cell interaction. Here, we present the practical procedures to generate subcutaneous tumors and experimental lung metastases used to evaluate the antitumor activity of your immunotherapy of interest. We also describe a method to quantify contrasted lung metastasis burden by imaging. Finally, we present a protocol to perform orthotopic injection of breast tumor cells in the mammary fat pad followed by tumor resection for the study of spontaneous metastases and evaluation of neoadjuvant immunotherapy.