Abstract 2461: PDX Finder: A free and global catalog of patient tumor derived xenograft models
Authors: Conte Nathalie , Mason Jeremy C. , Halmagyi Csaba , Mosaku Abayomi , Neuhauser Steven , Begley Dale A. , Krupke Debra M. , Parkinson Helen , Meehan Terrence F. , Bult Carol J. 
Published: August 2019

Patient-derived tumor xenograft (PDX) mouse models are an important oncology platform for cancer research, drug development and personalized medicine that are available from academic labs, large research consortia and contract research organizations (CROs). Because of the distributed and heterogeneous nature of repositories, finding models of interest is a challenge. To address this issue, The Jackson Laboratory and EMBL-EBI have co-developed the PDX Finder† (www.pdxfinder.org), a comprehensive, free and global catalogue of approximately 2000 PDX models and their associated data across repositories. To support the integration of data and make the discovery of relevant PDX models easier, we coordinated a community initiative to develop the PDX Minimal Information standard (PDX-MI). PDX-MI defines the metadata necessary for describing key elements of a PDX model including clinical attributes of a patient’s tumor, xenograft methods of implantation, host strain and model quality assurance methodology††. Using PDX-MI, model attributes are harmonized within PDX Finder into a cohesive ontological data model that supports integration from different resources and allows for comprehensive search and filtering options. PDX Finder also provides access to patient treatment information, genomic and drug dosing study data when available. Advanced search and filtering options allow researchers to find PDX models based on multiple attributes such as diagnosis (e.g. invasive ductal carcinoma), various tumor attributes (e.g. metastasis or primary), availability of specific datasets (e.g. mutation, dosing studies), markers (e.g. KRAS V600E) or results from drug resistance/sensitivity studies (e.g. resistance to cetuximab). From PDX Finder, direct links to originating resources are provided to allow users to contact the relevant institution for model acquisition and collaboration. PDX Finder is formally collaborating and providing critical software components to support several worldwide consortia including NCI’s PDXNet and EurOPDX. Individuals and organizations that generate or distribute PDX models are encouraged to register their models with PDX Finder. We also encourage researchers to explore the website to find PDX models and provide feedback as we continue to build this rich resource. Software components developed by the PDX Finder team are freely available under an Apache 2 license and source code is available at GitHub (github.com/pdxfinder). PDX Finder is supported by NCI U24 CA204781 01, R01 CA089713 and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.

† Conte et al, 2019. PDX Finder: A Portal for Patient-Derived Tumor Xenograft Model Discovery. NAR, in press.

†† Meehan, Conte et al, 2017. PDX-MI: Minimal Information for Patient-Derived Tumor Xenograft Models. Cancer Res. 2017 Nov.

Citation Format: Nathalie Conte, Jeremy C. Mason, Csaba Halmagyi, Abayomi Mosaku, Steven Neuhauser, Dale A. Begley, Debra M. Krupke, Helen Parkinson, Terrence F. Meehan, Carol J. Bult. PDX Finder: A free and global catalog of patient tumor derived xenograft models [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 2461.