Metastatic model of human colon cancer constructed using orthotopic implantation in nude mice

Nude mice have been used to grow subcutis (s.c.) growing human colorectal tumors, but these tumors rarely metastasize. This is a problem for studies into the biological behavior of metastatic subpopulations of human colorectal cancers. We have followed the evolution of the parental line and of a variant of human colon carcinoma KM12 cells, that were both tumorigenic, following implantation into the s.c. or cecal wall of nude mice. The tumors growing s.c. did not produce visceral metastases, whereas the cecal tumors metastasized to the regional mesenteric lymph nodes and to the liver. However, the incidence of liver metastases was different between the parental cell line KM12C cells and the in vivo selected cell line KM12SM cells after orthotopic inoculation. The morphological findings of KM12 cells proliferating in a monolayered sheet revealed that these two cell lines consisted of various cell populations. These results suggest that in the orthotopic colon cancer models, liver metastasis is defined by difference in subpopulations of metastatic phenotypes to the liver with early dominance of its growth in the implanted organ. As a result, our new model using orthotopic implantation of KM12SM cells, which produce a 50% incidence of liver metastasis, can help to provide a technique to study the biological behavior of metastatic subpopulations of human colon cancers.