Experimental animal models for radiobiological studies with low penetrating beams

The development of new radiotherapeutic approaches is a long-time process where the general concept should be proven from time to time even though clinical requirements, i.e. on particle energy, are not yet fulfilled. Examples are laser accelerated particle beams, which are promised to replace classical ion radiotherapy, and proton and X-ray micro beams. For these low penetrating beams in vivo models are required that allow for full penetration, e.g. by ~25 MeV proton beams with a penetration depth of ~4 mm, currently available at laser driven accelerators. As the standard tumour model on mice leg cannot be applied for this purpose a new small animal tumour model on mice ear was established for the investigation of tumour response, whereas for the study of normal tissue toxicity Zebrafish embryos were applied.

For the mouse ear tumour model, human tumour cells of three different entities (HNSCC FaDu, LN229 glioblastoma, A549 adenocarcinoma) were injected subcutaneously in the right ear of NMRI nude mice and growing tumours were characterized with respect to growth parameters, histology and 200 kV X-ray dose dependent tumour growth delay. Histological analyses reveal bordered tumours at treatment size (~10 mm³) that interact with the surrounding tissue and activate endothelial cells to form vessels. By X-ray treatment optimised dose ranges for inducing tumour growth delay but not tumour control were determined and a full scale radiobiological experiment at a clinical and a laser-accelerator was performed with FaDu tumours.

In order to quantify the normal tissue toxicity after irradiation with low energy beams wildtype Zebrafish embryos were applied whose size of ~1 mm allow for the full penetration, e.g. by ~10 MeV proton beams. Measurements of the radiobiological response to high (150 MeV) and low energy protons from a conventional therapy facility provide comparative data on survival and immune response for further studies with laser driven beams.

The results obtained during the establishment of the mouse ear tumour model and the Zebrafish embryo normal tissue model will be presented together with first findings of experiments with conventional and laser driven particle beams.

Acknowledgement: The work was supported by German BMBF, grant nos. 03ZIK445 and 03Z1N511 and ELI-ALPS project (GINOP-2.3.6-15-2015-00001).