Patient-derived Xenograft

Patient-Derived Xenografts (PDX) are crucial preclinical models where human tumor tissue (or cells) from a patient is implanted into immunodeficient mice, allowing the tumor to grow and maintain its original characteristics, thus closely mimicking the patient’s cancer for testing new drugs, understanding tumor biology, and developing personalized medicine. These models preserve genetic and histological features, providing higher predictive value for treatment response than traditional cell lines, but have limitations, notably in studying immunotherapies due to the mouse immune system.