Worldwide, kidney cancer accounts for 403,000 new cases and 175,000 deaths per year. Partial and full nephrectomies are main therapeutic approaches when kidney tumors are localized and could be curative. However, at advanced stages of the disease, kidney tumors are resistant to most systemic therapies and complete remissions remain rare events, underscoring the need to develop clinically relevant non-clinical in vitro and in vivo models that would support the identification and development of effective therapeutic approaches for patients with kidney cancer.
Kidney tumors are represented by various subtypes and are highly heterogeneous at both molecular and genetic levels. It is thought that tumoral heterogeneity, either intrinsic or therapy-induced, and changes in the tumor microenvironment might play a role in the development of resistance to therapies. To be reliable, nonclinical studies will require using multiple models capable of recapitulating diverse aspects of the heterogeneity of the tumor and of its microenvironment at different sites (i.e., primary and metastatic sites). For example, well characterized and controlled cancer models derived from kidney cancer patients (such as patient-derived xenografts) could become essential tools to understand how tumors evolved under therapeutic pressure and to identify potential mechanisms of resistance. In vitro models such as tumor slices in culture and cancer tissue fragments cultured with an air liquid interface could provide clues about how the tumor cells interact with their microenvironment and how therapies might affect the immune populations present in the microenvironment. Traditional in vitro and in vivo models such as kidney cancer cell lines, spontaneous or induced tumors as well as cell-derived xenografts or xenografts of tumoroids derived from patients in immunocompromised rodents may also have a role in the nonclinical setting by allowing for higher throughput and consistency.
This Research Topic aims to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of current nonclinical models, as well as the development of new models, used for kidney cancer including, but not limited to:
- In vivo or in vitro patient-derived cancer models.
- In vitro models including isolated cells or groups of cells cultured in 2D or as 3D tumoroids.
- Models allowing the assessment of the efficacy of immunotherapies.
- Development of models using microfluidic technologies or nanotechnologies.
This Research Topic will consider studies on all tumor types of kidney cancer. Authors are invited to submit Original Research Articles, Reviews, Mini-Reviews etc.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
Worldwide, kidney cancer accounts for 403,000 new cases and 175,000 deaths per year. Partial and full nephrectomies are main therapeutic approaches when kidney tumors are localized and could be curative. However, at advanced stages of the disease, kidney tumors are resistant to most systemic therapies and complete remissions remain rare events, underscoring the need to develop clinically relevant non-clinical in vitro and in vivo models that would support the identification and development of effective therapeutic approaches for patients with kidney cancer.
Kidney tumors are represented by various subtypes and are highly heterogeneous at both molecular and genetic levels. It is thought that tumoral heterogeneity, either intrinsic or therapy-induced, and changes in the tumor microenvironment might play a role in the development of resistance to therapies. To be reliable, nonclinical studies will require using multiple models capable of recapitulating diverse aspects of the heterogeneity of the tumor and of its microenvironment at different sites (i.e., primary and metastatic sites). For example, well characterized and controlled cancer models derived from kidney cancer patients (such as patient-derived xenografts) could become essential tools to understand how tumors evolved under therapeutic pressure and to identify potential mechanisms of resistance. In vitro models such as tumor slices in culture and cancer tissue fragments cultured with an air liquid interface could provide clues about how the tumor cells interact with their microenvironment and how therapies might affect the immune populations present in the microenvironment. Traditional in vitro and in vivo models such as kidney cancer cell lines, spontaneous or induced tumors as well as cell-derived xenografts or xenografts of tumoroids derived from patients in immunocompromised rodents may also have a role in the nonclinical setting by allowing for higher throughput and consistency.
This Research Topic aims to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of current nonclinical models, as well as the development of new models, used for kidney cancer including, but not limited to:
- In vivo or in vitro patient-derived cancer models.
- In vitro models including isolated cells or groups of cells cultured in 2D or as 3D tumoroids.
- Models allowing the assessment of the efficacy of immunotherapies.
- Development of models using microfluidic technologies or nanotechnologies.
This Research Topic will consider studies on all tumor types of kidney cancer. Authors are invited to submit Original Research Articles, Reviews, Mini-Reviews etc.
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.