Bioluminescence Imaging of an Immunocompetent Animal Model for Glioblastoma

In contrast to commonly reported human glioma xenograft animal models, GL261 murine glioma xenografts recapitulate nearly all relevant clinical and histopathologic features of the human disease. When GL261 cells are implanted intracranially in syngeneic C57BL/6 mice, the model has the added advantage of maintaining an intact immune microenvironment. Stable expression of luciferase in GL261 cells allows non-invasive cost effective bioluminescence monitoring of intracranial tumor growth. We have recently demonstrated that luciferase expression in GL261 cells does not affect the tumor growth properties, tumor cell immunomodulatory cytokine expression, infiltration of immune cells into the tumor, or overall survival of animals bearing the intracranial tumor. Therefore, it appears that the GL261 luciferase glioma model can be useful in the study of novel chemotherapeutic and immunotherapeutic modalities. Here we report the technique for generating stable luciferase expression in GL261 cells and how to study the in vitro and in vivo growth of the tumor cells by bioluminescence imaging.