A novel SCID mouse model for studying spontaneous metastasis of human lung cancer to human tissue

We established a novel severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mouse model for the study of human lung cancer metastasis to human lung. Implantation of both human fetal and adult lung tissue into mammary fat pads of SCID mice showed a 100% rate of engraftment, but only fetal lung implants revealed normal morphology of human lung tissue. Using these chimeric mice, we analyzed human lung cancer metastasis to both mouse and human lungs by subcutaneous inoculation of human squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma cell lines into the mice. In 60 to 70% of SCID mice injected with human-lung squamous-cell carcinoma, RERF-LC-AI, cancer cells were found to have metastasized to both mouse lungs and human fetal lung implants but not to human adult lung implants 80 days after cancer inoculation. Furthermore, human-lung adenocarcinoma cells, RERF-LC-KJ, metastasized to the human lung implants within 90 days in about 40% of SCID mice, whereas there were no metastases to the lungs of the mice. These results demonstrate the potential of this model for the in vivo study of human lung cancer metastasis.