A Molecularly Annotated Platform of Patient-Derived Xenografts (“Xenopatients”) Identifies HER2 as an Effective Therapeutic Target in Cetuximab-Resistant Colorectal Cancer

UNLABELLED: Only a fraction of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer receive clinical benefit from therapy with anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) antibodies, which calls for the identification of novel biomarkers for better personalized medicine. We produced large xenograft cohorts from 85 patient-derived, genetically characterized metastatic colorectal cancer samples ("xenopatients") to discover novel determinants of therapeutic response and new oncoprotein targets. Serially passaged tumors retained the morphologic and genomic features of their original counterparts. A validation trial confirmed the robustness of this approach: xenopatients responded to the anti-EGFR antibody cetuximab with…

• MD
  Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca
• AI
  Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro
• RP
  Regione Piemonte
• G
  Genentech