Tumorsphere Derivation and Treatment from Primary Tumor Cells Isolated from Mouse Rhabdomyosarcomas

Rhabdomyosarcoma is a rare form of soft-tissue sarcomas characterized histologically by tissue morphology and the expression of myogenic markers. However, given the existence of different subtypes of these tumors and the heterogeneity of the stimuli that contributes to its formation, the identification of the cell of origin has been very challenging. Here we describe reproducible and reliable methods for the identification of the cell of origin of rhabdomyosarcomas starting from freshly harvest tumor tissues from mice and this assay is the tumorsphere formation assay.

The main advantages of tumorsphere formation assay is that it relies on cellular properties that are known to be present in tumor-originating cells and it can also be used for expansion and enrichment of the specific cell population. Furthermore, its spheroid structure mimic the tumor environment, thus they can be used as drug-screening studies. This method has the potential to be applied to others type of tumors because it does not require prior knowledge of molecular markers but it may require optimization of culture conditions.