Inducible mouse models of colon cancer for the analysis of sporadic and inflammation-driven tumor progression and lymph node metastasis.

Despite advances in the detection and therapy of colorectal cancer (CRC) in recent years, CRC has remained a major challenge in clinical practice. Although alternative methods for modeling CRC have been developed, animal models of CRC remain helpful when analyzing molecular aspects of pathogenesis and are often used to perform preclinical in vivo studies of potential therapeutics. This protocol updates our protocol published in 2007, which provided an azoxymethane (AOM)-based setup for investigations into sporadic (Step 5A) and, when combined with dextran sodium sulfate (Step 5B), inflammation-associated tumor growth. This update also extends the applications beyond those of the original protocol by including an option in which AOM is serially applied to mice with p53 deficiency in the intestinal epithelium (Step 5C). In this model, the combination of p53 deficiency and AOM promotes tumor development, including growth of invasive cancers and lymph node metastasis. It also provides details on analysis of colorectal tumor growth and metastasis, including analysis of partial epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, cell isolation and co-culture studies, high-resolution mini-endoscopy, light-sheet fluorescence microscopy and micro-CT imaging in mice. The target audience for our protocol is researchers who plan in vivo studies to address mechanisms influencing sporadic or inflammation-driven tumor development, including the analysis of local invasiveness and lymph node metastasis. It is suitable for preclinical in vivo testing of novel drugs and other interventional strategies for clinical translation, plus the evaluation of emerging imaging devices/modalities. It can be completed within 24 weeks (using Step 5A/C) or 10 weeks (using Step 5B).