Characterization of a clival chordoma xenograft model reveals inherent tumor genomic instability

Patient-derived xenografts retain the genotype of the parent tumors more readily than tumor cells maintained in culture. The two reported clival chordoma xenografts are derived from recurrent tumors after radiation. In order to study the genetics of clival chordoma in the absence of prior radiation we sought to establish a patient-derived xenograft at primary resection of a clival chordoma. Copy number analysis of primary tumor and 2 PDX passages using Affymetrix SNP6 arrays