Establishment of gastric signet ring cell carcinoma organoid for the therapeutic drug testing

Signet ring cell carcinoma (SRCC) has specific oncogenesis and phenotypic and treatment resistance heterogeneity. Systemic therapies are often ineffective, and predictive biomarkers to guide treatment are urgently needed. Tumor organoids have recently emerged as an ideal model for drug testing and screening. Here, we report gastric organoids established from tumor tissues comprising four SRCCs and eight non-SRCCs. Tumor organoids demonstrated different growth characteristics and morphologies. Changes in the original tumor genome were maintained during long-term culture from whole-exome sequencing (WES) analysis. Immunohistochemistry and H&E staining showed that the tissue characteristics of the primary tumor could be recapitulated. In addition, organoid lines successfully formed tumors in immunodeficient mice and maintained tumorigenic character. Different responses to 5-fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, docetaxel and irinotecan treatment were observed in SRCC and non-SRCC organoids. These results demonstrate that gastric organoid drug models, including SRCC, were highly similar to the original tumors in phenotypic and genotypic profiling and could be as living biomarkers for drug response testing.

Automated summary

This study established gastric organoid models to test drugs for SRCC and non-SRCC tumors. The results showed that these organoid models were highly similar to the original tumors in phenotype and genotype, and could serve as living biomarkers for drug response testing.