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Review

Immunotherapies and Metastatic Cancers: Understanding Utility and Predictivity of Human Immune Cell Engrafted Mice in Preclinical Drug Development

1
OncoBone Ltd., Kalimenojankuja 3 C 4, FI-90810 Kiviniemi, Finland
2
Institute of Biomedicine, University of Turku, Kiinamyllynkatu 10, FI-20520 Turku, Finland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Cancers 2020, 12(6), 1615; https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers12061615
Received: 30 April 2020 / Revised: 12 June 2020 / Accepted: 17 June 2020 / Published: 18 June 2020
Metastases cause high mortality in several cancers and immunotherapies are expected to be effective in the prevention and treatment of metastatic disease. However, only a minority of patients benefit from immunotherapies. This creates a need for novel therapies that are efficacious regardless of the cancer types and metastatic environments they are growing in. Preclinical immuno-oncology models for studying metastases have long been limited to syngeneic or carcinogenesis-inducible models that have murine cancer and immune cells. However, the translational power of these models has been questioned. Interactions between tumor and immune cells are often species-specific and regulated by different cytokines in mice and humans. For increased translational power, mice engrafted with functional parts of human immune system have been developed. These humanized mice are utilized to advance understanding the role of immune cells in the metastatic process, but increasingly also to study the efficacy and safety of novel immunotherapies. From these aspects, this review will discuss the role of immune cells in the metastatic process and the utility of humanized mouse models in immuno-oncology research for metastatic cancers, covering several models from the perspective of efficacy and safety of immunotherapies. View Full-Text
Keywords: humanized mice; human immune system; preclinical oncology model; metastasis model; immunotherapy; efficacy; safety humanized mice; human immune system; preclinical oncology model; metastasis model; immunotherapy; efficacy; safety
MDPI and ACS Style

Kähkönen, T.E.; Halleen, J.M.; Bernoulli, J. Immunotherapies and Metastatic Cancers: Understanding Utility and Predictivity of Human Immune Cell Engrafted Mice in Preclinical Drug Development. Cancers 2020, 12, 1615. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers12061615

AMA Style

Kähkönen TE, Halleen JM, Bernoulli J. Immunotherapies and Metastatic Cancers: Understanding Utility and Predictivity of Human Immune Cell Engrafted Mice in Preclinical Drug Development. Cancers. 2020; 12(6):1615. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers12061615

Chicago/Turabian Style

Kähkönen, Tiina E., Jussi M. Halleen, and Jenni Bernoulli. 2020. "Immunotherapies and Metastatic Cancers: Understanding Utility and Predictivity of Human Immune Cell Engrafted Mice in Preclinical Drug Development" Cancers 12, no. 6: 1615. https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers12061615

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