Models of High-Grade Serous Ovarian Carcinoma

High-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSC) remains an incompletely understood, highly lethal disease. Historically, a lack of fidelitous in vitro and in vivo models representing HGSC biology and therapy response has been a major barrier to progress. As we discuss below, multiple (if not most) early studies used-and some investigators continue to use-human "ovarian cancer cell lines" that lack key genomic/genetic features of HGSC, rendering their conclusions questionable. The frequently deployed ID8 syngeneic mouse model is similarly suspect, as it derives from ovarian surface epithelium (OSE) and is Trp53 wild-type. In contrast, most, if not all, HGSC arises in fallopian tube epithelium (FTE), and bona fide HGSC is universally TP53 mutant or silenced. Over the past 10 years, attempts have been made to rectify these historical deficiencies, including careful assessment of the genetic composition of standard ovarian cancer cell lines and the development of mouse and human organoids, genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs), and patient-derived xenografts (PDXs). In this review, we discuss these advances, exploring their differences, strengths, and weaknesses. We also describe "next-generation" approaches to more faithfully model HGSC cells in the context of a more realistic tumor microenvironment.