# Project 3: Modeling tumor evolution and drug response in bladder cancer organoids

> **NIH NIH P01** · COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2020 · $369,766

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 Tumor heterogeneity and clonal evolution play key roles in cancer progression and the response to
therapy. However, clonal evolution has been difficult to study in solid tumors such as bladder cancer, in part
due to the lack of amenable model systems. In this Project, we propose to use patient-derived bladder tumor
organoids as a new model system to pursue longitudinal studies of tumor evolution and its role in drug
response and resistance. In preliminary studies, we have developed culture conditions for the establishment of
patient-derived organoid lines from bladder cancer tissues that range from papillary non-invasive tumors to
muscle-invasive cancer, and have shown that these organoid lines recapitulate the histopathological and
molecular features of their corresponding parental tumors. In particular, we have found that these organoid
lines display changes in mutational profiles during serial passaging in culture that are consistent with clonal
evolution. We have further demonstrated that these lines can be used to assay drug response, and that these
responses can be validated in orthotopic xenografts from these organoids in vivo.
 We will now use these patient-derived bladder cancer organoid models to investigate clonal evolution
and drug response in bladder cancer by pursuing three specific aims: 1) Analysis of heterogeneity and tumor
evolution in bladder cancer organoids by examining the maintenance of heterogeneity during serial passaging
and by investigating how genome instability and epigenetic dysregulation drive clonal evolution; 2)
Investigation of chemotherapy response in bladder cancer organoids by analyzing the role of the nucleotide
excision repair pathway gene ERCC2 in differential response to cisplatin treatment; and 3) Analysis of clonal
evolution in drug resistance of bladder cancer organoids using lentiviral-mediated barcoding and single-cell
RNA sequencing to perform longitudinal analyses of clonal tumor populations during the emergence of drug
resistance in culture. These studies will be greatly facilitated by the biobank of patient-derived organoid lines
and xenografts that will be generated by the Bladder Cancer Models Core, histopathology and targeted exome
sequencing performed by the Molecular Pathology Core, and bioinformatic and biostatistical support from the
Administrative Core. Our work will also be highly integrated with Projects 1 and 2 through our analyses of the
potential roles of the epigenetic regulators KDM6A and ARID1A in driving tumor heterogeneity and evolution,
while at the same time, our studies of patient-derived bladder tumor organoids will provide valuable reagents
and insights for the other Projects.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9972897
- **Project number:** 5P01CA221757-03
- **Recipient organization:** COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** MICHAEL M. SHEN
- **Activity code:** P01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $369,766
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** — → —

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9972897

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9972897, Project 3: Modeling tumor evolution and drug response in bladder cancer organoids (5P01CA221757-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9972897. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*