Kinomic comparison of snap frozen and ex vivo-cultured head and neck tumors

Objectives: The use of primary tumor tissue in experimental and pre-clinical cancer research is becoming increasingly important. Especially the use of tissue slice cultures of tumor specimen, so called ex vivo cultures or tumor explants, promises functional analysis under approximate physiological conditions. This includes screening and testing of targeted therapeutics directed against deregulated protein kinases. However, it is unclear if ex vivo cultures indeed represent the in situ situation especially with respect to very sensitive and transient molecular processes such as kinase dependent signaling. We now asked here, if and to what extent ex vivo culturing affects kinase activity. Materials and Methods: We analyzed the activity of protein tyrosine kinases (PTK) using functional kinome profiling of either snap frozen or ex vivo-cultured tumor tissue samples of head and neck cancer patients. Results: Although we observed a quantitative decline in overall kinase activity after 24 h or 48 h of ex vivo cultivation, we most importantly noticed that the signaling characteristics were conserved in most samples; approximately two thirds of all ex vivo-cultured samples displayed a signaling pattern which was qualitatively comparable to the parental tumor. We could also demonstrate kinase inhibition by treatment of ex vivo slice cultures with the multi-kinase inhibitor staurosporine, although higher concentrations were needed compared to cell cultures. Conclusion: We here demonstrate that the tyrosine kinase dependent signaling is conserved under ex vivo culturing conditions in the majority of samples, which highlights the power of this method in experimental and pre-clinical cancer research.

Automated summary

Analysis of protein tyrosine kinase (PTK) activity in head and neck cancer patient samples, both snap-frozen and ex vivo-cultured, showed a quantitative decline in overall kinase activity after 24-48 hours, but conservation of signaling characteristics in approximately two thirds of ex vivo-cultured samples, highlighting the potential of this method in cancer research.