Talbert, E. E. et al. Cell Rep. 28, 1612–1622.e4 (2019)

No clinical therapies exist to treat cancer cachexia, a condition characterized by a loss of skeletal muscle mass that negatively affects the quality of life and survival of patients with cancer. Existing animal models fail to fully recapitulate human cancer cachexia, limiting our understanding of the condition and the development of new therapies.

A new study confirms that the two most commonly used xenograft mouse models of cachexia—the C-26 and LLC models—do not recapitulate the gene expression changes seen in muscles from patients with cachexia. The study also describes the development of a new genetically engineered mouse model of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA), the KPP mouse, which exhibits a cachectic phenotype and a transcriptional profile that more closely resemble those of patients with PDA.