# Supplement: Lentiviral-Induced Swine Model of Spinal Cord Glioma - Tumor Microenvironment in IDH-Mutations Low-Grade Glioma

> **NIH NIH R01** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $172,375

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 This application is being submitted in response to Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) identified
as NOT-CA-24-029.
High-grade Spinal Cord Glioma (SCG) is an orphan disease that results in significant morbidity
and mortality, with no effective treatment options available. Despite significant advances in our
knowledge of the disease process, there have unfortunately been limited changes to the clinical
outcomes. In part, this represents the malignant nature of a disease that is refractory to the
standard of care. On the other hand, this raises the question of the translational value of existing
preclinical animal models, especially from a surgical standpoint – where widely scalable large
animal models of SCG were previously unavailable. To this end, we have begun to address this
gap in the field by developing a minipig SCG model. Through lentiviral targeting of the well
implicated RTK/RAS/PI3K and p53 pathways, our preliminary data demonstrates the induction of
high-grade astrocytoma with histopathologic, radiologic, and transcriptomic characterization in
100% of minipigs. Consequently, we posit that the next steps to advancement of this model
system are to modulate tumor phenotype and to demonstrate its utility in a directly translatable
surgical application. In the Parent Award, we will begin by evaluating the induction of SCG by
targeting common genetic lesions implicated in the human disease including PDGFB, P53,
CDKN2A, EGFR, and PTEN (AIM 1). In parallel, we will apply our existing minipig SCG model
(AIM 2) to perform the first intra-tumoral convection enhanced delivery (CED) study for SCG in a
large animal. In this Supplement, we plan to establish a low-grade glioma minipig model with the
IDH mutation for potential therapeutic application, followed by the characterization of the tumor
microenvironment. The outcome of our study will yield preliminary data for establishing a new
LGG minipig model in the brain that characterizes the spread and evolution of IDH-relevant
tumors, offering robust representations of human biology in a system that mimics the lifespan and
anatomy of human disease.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11127912
- **Project number:** 3R01CA251393-04S1
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** NICHOLAS M BOULIS
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $172,375
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2024-06-01 → 2025-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11127912

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11127912, Supplement: Lentiviral-Induced Swine Model of Spinal Cord Glioma - Tumor Microenvironment in IDH-Mutations Low-Grade Glioma (3R01CA251393-04S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11127912. Licensed CC0.

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