Introni.it - MetaTropismDB

About MetaTropismDB Despite the recent discoveries, the biological and molecular understanding of the formation and localization of metastases is not fully known yet. In order to study the tumor evolution, the research mostly uses murine models. A common type of experiment involves the inoculation, by various techniques, of human tumor cell lines in immunosuppressed mouse models to avoid rejection reactions. In particular, this experimental model allows the evaluation of the effectiveness of potential anticancer therapies in vivo. By hand-curated literature screening we collected, in MetaTropismDB database, experimentally assessed data about the organotropism of several human cancer cell lines. In the reviewed studies, human cell lines have been injected in murine models in order to assess the patterns of metastasis. In particular, we collected all the experimental conditions and the obtained results, including the organs NOT affected by metastases. Currently, it stores the results of 513 experiments in which cell line injection in mouse models have been carried out. The database allows to easily highlight cell lines or particular clones with metastatic activity with similar organotropism, or alternatively, cell lines and clones which, although deriving from the same type of primary tumor, have tropism for different organs. This allows researchers to choose, with greater awareness and accuracy, the cell lines to be analyzed at the molecular level in order to investigate the biological bases of metastasis organotropism.