Establishing an in vivo model of canine prostate carcinoma using the new cell line CT1258

Although prostate cancer is of great importance in veterinary medicine as well as in comparative medicine, there are only few cell lines available. Thus, it was the aim of the present study to determine whether the formerly established prostate carcinoma cell line CT1258 is a suitable tool for in vivo testing, and to distinguish the growth pattern of the induced tumours.For characterisation of the in vivo behaviour of the in vitro established canine prostate carcinoma cell line CT1258, cells were inoculated in 19 NOD.CB17-PrkdcScid/J (in the following: NOD-Scid) mice, either subcutaneously or intraperitoneally. After sacrifice, the obtained specimens were examined histologically and compared to the pattern of the original tumour in the donor.Cytogenetic investigation was performed.The cell line CT 1258 not only showed to be highly tumourigenic after subcutaneous as well as intraperitoneal inoculation, but also mimicked the behaviour of the original tumour.Tumours induced by inoculation of the cell line CT1258 resemble the situation in naturally occurring prostate carcinoma in the dog, and thus could be used as in vivo model for future studies.Only few species are known to spontaneously develop prostatic neoplasia; therefore the search for a suitable animal model for this disease is difficult. Currently, the dog is used as in vivo model for prostate malignancies in man, since it shows a similar metastatic pattern as well as age dependent development of malignant prostatic lesions [1-3]. Whereas prostate cancer is a frequent finding in man and even one of the leading causes of death in the Western world, it is less common in the dog. The prevalence is only 0. 2%–0. 6% [20]. Since this number is based on necropsy findings, the true number might be higher [4,5]. Although the relative number appears to be quite low, it results in an absolute count of estimated 60,000–180,000 affected dogs in the USA, 6,000–18,000 dogs in the UK, and 5,300–15,900 dogs in Germany, based on