A Novel Gene Signature predicts immune infiltration phenotypes in humanized Patient Derived Xenograft Models

The Tumor Microenvironment (TME) plays a key role in tumor progression, metastasis, and therapeutic resistance by enabling tumor cells to evade immune surveillance. Understanding how immune cell populations influence the TME and therapeutic response is critical to improving patient outcomes. For preclinical testing of immunotherapy agents, it is essential to use clinically and biologically relevant models. However, many current models lack a comprehensive characterization of the TME, limiting their effectiveness in evaluating therapeutic efficacy.

• Champions Oncology developed a signature to predict immune infiltration by leveraging transcriptomic data from its TumorGraft® models, validated through histological analysis of PDX models in humanized mice with a fully reconstituted human immune system.

• PDX models, known for their clinical relevance, form the basis of Champions Oncology's preclinical research, supported by a deeply characterized PDX bank with multi-omic data, including next-generation sequencing (WES, RNAseq), proteomics, and patient treatment histories.

• To identify a molecular signature of immune infiltration, Champions used xCell for cell type enrichment analysis on 64 immune and stroma cell types, while humanized mice with reconstituted immune systems were used to implant PDXs for validation.