Characterization of human glioblastoma xenograft growth in athymic mice

BACKGROUND-MATERIALS-METHODS: We initiated the studies reported in this paper to establish baseline growth data for tumors produced by several human brain tumor cell lines. Female athymic mice were injected with five established human glioblastoma cell lines subcutaneously. We optimized implantation conditions in SF-767 cells by evaluating tumor take and growth characteristics, and resulting growth data were compared to 2 other cell lines.

Three (SF-767, U-251 MG-NCI, and U-87 MG) of the 5 cell lines produced solid, ellipsoid tumors. For SF-767 cells, the best tumor growth parameters were achieved when 3.0 x 10(6) cells in 0.1 ml medium containing fetal calf serum were injected unilaterally. These conditions produced a high percentage of usable tumors (77.6%) that were detectable approximately 3 days after implantation and reached a size of 100 mm3 in 23 days. Comparison of several growth characteristics of the tumors produced by the 3 cell lines revealed that SF-767 tumors displayed the most uniform growth rates, the fastest doubling times, and the most uniform usable group of tumors (> 100 mm3). U-87 MG and U-251 MG-NCI had a similar histopathologic appearance while SF-767 had a different histology. Our results indicate that these 3 human glioblastoma cells produce flank tumors that exhibit decidedly different growth parameters. We are currently using all 3 of these human brain tumor xenograft models in other in vivo studies.