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A Noninvasive Approach for Assessing Tumor Hypoxia in Xenografts: Developing a Urinary Marker for Hypoxia

¹ Departments of Radiation Oncology and ² Pathology, Stanford University, Stanford, California

Requests for reprints: Quynh-Thu Le, Department of Radiation Oncology, 875 Blake Wilbur Dr, MC 5847, Stanford, CA 94305-5847. Phone: 650-498-5032; Fax: 650-725-8231; E-mail: qle{at}stanford.edu.

Tumor hypoxia modifies the efficacy of conventional anticancer therapy and promotes malignant tumor progression. Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a glycoprotein secreted during pregnancy that has been used to monitor tumor burden in xenografts engineered to express this marker. We adapted this approach to use urinary ß-hCG as a secreted reporter protein for tumor hypoxia. We used a hypoxia-inducible promoter containing five tandem repeats of the hypoxia-response element (HRE) ligated upstream of the ß-hCG gene. This construct was stably integrated into two different cancer cell lines, FaDu, a human head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, and RKO, a human colorectal cancer cell line. In vitro studies showed that tumor cells stably transfected with this plasmid construct secrete ß-hCG in response to hypoxia or hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) stabilizing agents. The hypoxia responsiveness of this construct can be blocked by treatment with agents that affect the HIF-1 pathways, including topotecan, 1-benzyl-3-(5'-hydroxymethyl-2'-furyl)indazole (YC-1), and flavopiridol. Immunofluorescent analysis of tumor sections and quantitative assessment with flow cytometry indicate colocalization between ß-hCG and 2-(2-nitro-1H-imidazol-1-yl)-N-(2,2,3,3,3-pentafluoropropyl)acetamide (EF5) and ß-hCG and pimonidazole, two extrinsic markers for tumor hypoxia. Secretion of ß-hCG from xenografts that contain these stable constructs is directly responsive to changes in tumor oxygenation, including exposure of the animals to 10% O₂ and tumor bed irradiation. Similarly, urinary ß-hCG levels decline after treatment with flavopiridol, an inhibitor of HIF-1 transactivation. This effect was observed only in tumor cells expressing a HRE-regulated reporter gene and not in tumor cells expressing a cytomegalovirus-regulated reporter gene. The 5HRE ß-hCG reporter system described here enables serial, noninvasive monitoring of tumor hypoxia in a mouse model by measuring a urinary reporter protein.

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