Cell, Animal and Imaging Core

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The Program makes extensive use of human cell lines and animal models of prostate cancer. The overall goal of this Core is to provide materials, instructional support, technical aid,/n vivo imaging of mouse models of prostate cancer metastases, and ex-vivo assays of tumor-bone interactions to Project investigators. This will encompass the storage and distribution of well-characterized prostate cell lines and xenografts; the storage and distribution of reporter and inducible cell lines; and instruction, guidelines and assistance with xenograft studies, Xenogen and Faxitron imaging and assays for osteoblast, osteoclast and angiogenesis. Such standardization of cell culture reagents and animal techniques will facilitate research by improving the quality of the data, reducing redundancy and allowing comparison of results between the all Projects. This Core will have 5 Aims: 1) Provide wellcharacterized prostate cancer and normal prostate cell lines to investigators and house a repository of all common tumor and immortalized cell lines. In addition, the Core will carry out mycoplasma testing and genetic fingerprinting (SNP analysis and/or VNTRs) of all cell lines received by Program investigators from outside sources. Thus, any cell line received by an investigator will first be processed by the Core in this way and a sample frozen in the repository. The Core will also serve as a repository of new cell lines derived by Program investigators such as those with inducible promoters (S. Parsons, Weber) or with imaging capability such as those containing transfected luciferase constructs (Theodorescu). 2) Provide live instruction and guidelines for investigators using xenograft models such as those derived after subcutaneous, intracardiac, intrafemoral and intraprostatic injection of tumor cells and with procedures such as orchiectomy. Instructional videos will be made of these procedures and saved on a central server database (PROSTA, Core A) accessible by all Program members via standard networked PCs. 3) Support for in vivo fluorescent imaging of tumors and Faxitron radiographic imaging and quantitation of bone metastases will be provided by the Core. Technical help will involve providing instruction as well as taking animals to the UVA SAMMIC core for MS (Xenogen Corp.) imaging of tumors expressing luciferase. 4) Assessment of tumor-bone interactions will be performed using wellcharacterized assays of osteoblast, osteoclast and endothelial cell function. 5) Microscopy Imaging: a) Resources for the routine analysis and documentation of cell structure and morphology and the detection of macromolecules in fixed, live cells and tissues; b) resources for single cell analysis; and c) training for Program personnel and overall oversight of Core equipment.