Canine oral squamous cell carcinoma as a spontaneous, translational model for radiation and immunology research.

Introduction: Improving outcomes for oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients has been hindered by a lack of effective predictive animal models. Spontaneously occurring canine OSCC could help fill this gap. The objective of this study was to characterize the immune landscape of canine OSCC to advance understanding of how dogs could serve as a surrogate for human OSCC.

Immunologic Effects of Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy in Dogs with Spontaneous Tumors and the Impact of Intratumoral OX40/TLR Agonist Immunotherapy.

Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is known to induce important immunologic changes within the tumor microenvironment (TME). However, little is known regarding the early immune responses within the TME in the first few weeks following SBRT. Therefore, we used the canine spontaneous tumor model to investigate TME responses to SBRT, and how local injection of immune modulatory antibodies to OX40 and TLR 3/9 agonists might modify those responses.

Therapeutic Intervention Using a Smad7-Based Tat Protein to Treat Radiation-Induced Oral Mucositis.

Purpose: Recent studies reported therapeutic effects of Smad7 on oral mucositis in mice without compromising radiation therapy-induced cancer cell killing in neighboring oral cancer. This study aims to assess whether a Smad7-based biologic can treat oral mucositis in a clinically relevant setting by establishing an oral mucositis model in dogs and analyzing molecular targets.

Methods And Materials: We created a truncated human Smad7 protein fused with the cell-penetrating Tat tag (Tat-PYC-Smad7).