Rapid autopsies to enhance metastatic research: the UPTIDER post-mortem tissue donation program

• Published in: NPJ breast cancer Vol. 10; no. 1; p. 31
• Main Authors: Geukens, Tatjana, De Schepper, Maxim, Van Den Bogaert, Wouter, Van Baelen, Karen, Maetens, Marion, Pabba, Anirudh, Mahdami, Amena, Leduc, Sophia, Isnaldi, Edoardo, Nguyen, Ha-Linh, Bachir, Imane, Hajipirloo, Maysam, Zels, Gitte, Van Cauwenberge, Josephine, Borremans, Kristien, Vandecaveye, Vincent, Weynand, Birgit, Vermeulen, Peter, Leucci, Eleonora, Baietti, Maria Francesca, Sflomos, George, Battista, Laura, Brisken, Cathrin, Derksen, Patrick W. B., Koorman, Thijs, Visser, Daan, Scheele, Colinda L. G. J., Thommen, Daniela S., Hatse, Sigrid, Fendt, Sarah-Maria, Vanderheyden, Evy, Van Brussel, Thomas, Schepers, Rogier, Boeckx, Bram, Lambrechts, Diether, Marano, Giuseppe, Biganzoli, Elia, Smeets, Ann, Nevelsteen, Ines, Punie, Kevin, Neven, Patrick, Wildiers, Hans, Richard, François, Floris, Giuseppe, Desmedt, Christine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 24.04.2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 631/67/1347; 631/67/2329; 631/67/322; 631/67/327; 631/67/70; Autopsies; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Biopsy; Breast cancer; Cancer Research; Cell Biology; Human Genetics; Medical research; Metastasis; Oncology; Patients; Structured Query Language-SQL
• ISSN: 2374-4677; 2374-4677
• DOI: 10.1038/s41523-024-00637-3

Research on metastatic cancer has been hampered by limited sample availability. Here we present the breast cancer post-mortem tissue donation program UPTIDER and show how it enabled sampling of a median of 31 (range: 5-90) metastases and 5-8 liquids per patient from its first 20 patients. In a dedicated experiment, we show the mild impact of increasing time after death on RNA quality, transcriptional profiles and immunohistochemical staining in tumor tissue samples. We show that this impact can be counteracted by organ cooling. We successfully generated ex vivo models from tissue and liquid biopsies from distinct histological subtypes of breast cancer. We anticipate these and future findings of UPTIDER to elucidate mechanisms of disease progression and treatment resistance and to provide tools for the exploration of precision medicine strategies in the metastatic setting.