Radiation response in xenografts of the head and neck cancer UT14 cell line

Low passage head and neck squamous cancer cells (UT-14-SCC) were injected into the flanks of female nu/nu mice to generate xenografts. After tumors reached a size of 500mm3, they were treated with either sham RT or 15 Gy in one fraction. At different time points, days 0, 3, 10 and for controls and days 4, 7, 12, and 21 after irradiation, the tumors were harvested for global gene expression analysis and pathway analysis. Samples from the control time points (n=7) were compared to each of the post-irradiation time points (n=2). The changes in gene expression at each time point were compared to the other time points.