Patient-derived malignant pleural mesothelioma cell cultures: a tool to advance biomarker-driven treatments
Kanellakis NI., Asciak R., Hamid MA., Yao X., McCole M., McGowan S., Seraia E., Hatch S., Hallifax RJ., Mercer RM., Bedawi EO., Jones S., Verrill C., Dobson M., George V., Stathopoulos GT., Peng Y., Ebner D., Dong T., Rahman NM., Psallidas I.
Malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) is an aggressive cancer, associated with poor prognosis. We assessed the feasibility of patient-derived cell cultures to serve as an ex vivo model of MPM. Patient-derived MPM cell cultures (n=16) exhibited stemness features and reflected intratumour and interpatient heterogeneity. A subset of the cells were subjected to high-throughput drug screening and coculture assays with cancer-specific cytotoxic T cells and showed diverse responses. Some of the biphasic MPM cells were capable of processing and presenting the neoantigen SSX-2 endogenously. In conclusion, patient-derived MPM cell cultures are a promising and faithful ex vivo model of MPM.