A small animal tumour model for in vivo studies with low energy laser accelerated particles

Introduction: The long-term aim of developing laser based acceleration of protons and ions towards clinical application requires not only substantial technological progress, but also the radiobiological characterization of the resulting ultra-short and ultra-intensive particle beam pulses. Recent in vitro data showed similar effects of laser-accelerated versus “conventional” protons on clonogenic cell survival and DNA double-strand breaks. As the proton energies currently achieved for radiobiological experiments by laser driven acceleration are too low to penetrate standard tumour models on mouse legs, a small animal tumour model allowing for the penetration of low energy protons (~20 MeV) was developed to further verify the effects in vivo.

Methods: The originally for human HNSCC FaDu established mouse ear tumour model was adapted for LN229 human glioblastoma cells. For this, cells were injected subcutaneously in the right ear of NMRI nude mice and the growing tumours were characterized with respect to growth parameters and histology. After optimizing the number of injected cells and used medium (PBS, Matrigel) the radiation response was studied by 200 kV X-ray irradiation. Furthermore, a proof-of-principle full scale experiment with laser accelerated electrons was performed to validate the FaDu tumour model under realistic, i.e. harsh, conditions at experimental laser accelerators.

Results: Both human tumour models showed a high take rate and continuous tumour growth after reaching a volume of ~5 – 10 mm3. Moreover, immunofluorescence analysis revealed that already the small tumours interact with the surrounding tissue and activate endothelial cells to form vessels. By analysing the dose dependent tumour growth curves after 200 kV X-ray treatment a realistic dose range, i.e. for inducing tumour growth delay but not tumour control, was defined for both tumour entities under investigation.
Beside this basic characterization, the comparison of the influence of laser driven and conventional (clinical Linac) electrons on the growth of FaDu tumours reveal no significant difference in the radiation induced tumour growth delay.

Conclusion: The already established mouse ear tumour model was successfully upgraded now providing stable tumour growth with high take rate for two tumour entities (HNSCC, glioblastoma) that are of interest for future proton treatment. Experiments comparing laser driven and conventional proton beams in vivo as the next step towards clinical application of laser driven particle acceleration are under way.

Acknowledgement: The work was supported by the German Government, Federal Ministry of Education and Research, grant nos. 03ZIK445 and 03Z1N511.