Intra-arterial injection to create bone metastasis of prostate cancer in mice

Human prostate cancer often metastasizes to the bone, but the mechanisms are not quite clear. The difficulties in studying the biology of bone metastasis are due to lack of animal models with high frequency of bone metastases. In the present study, we tested two intra-arterial injection methods, i.e., intra-caudal artery injection and intra-femoral artery injection. Mouse prostate cancer cell line MPC3-luc was injected into C57BL/6J male mice via intra-caudal artery injection (n = 8) or intra-femoral artery injection (n = 11). We found one mouse developed metastatic tumors in both hind limbs and the tail after intra-caudal artery injection. Two mice developed metastatic tumors in the hind limb after intra-femoral artery injection. The metastatic tumors were detected by bioluminescent imaging and X-ray, and confirmed by histological examination. Our study finds that intra-arterial (either caudal or femoral artery) injection may be a useful model in studying prostate cancer bone metastasis, however, the injection technique is difficult.