Figure 5.

Refinement of animal models using photoprotein reporters. Standard methods of monitoring tumor cell growth utilize multiple reporters and indicators to reveal the effects of experimental therapies on tumor cell growth in correlative cell culture assays. These assays often cannot be applied to in vivo analyses and assessing tumor growth in vivo is limited to measuring tumor size at superficial sites. Thus, ex vivo assays such as PCR, histological examination and weighing tumors have been necessary to assess tumor growth. These ex vivo assays often require sacrifice of the animals at multiple time points. Imaging tumor cell growth in culture and in vivo can be performed using a single reporter gene and signals for this reporter gene can be used to direct the ex vivo assays such that times and tissues can be targeted for analyses. This approach results in animal models and preclinical data that can be more predictive of human disease states.