The real power of this model is that we can use a patient’s own tissue to investigate their disease. Since lymph nodes are often the first site of metastasis, this approach provides a unique opportunity to explore how each patient’s immune system interacts with their cancer as it spreads. We believe this could potentially shift how we approach cancer treatment, particularly in biomarker discovery and drug development.”
Senior author of the study, Dr Kalnisha Naidoo from the School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Sciences.
27 February 2025
King's researchers publish how to guide to studying human lymph nodes outside the body
King’s academics, who developed a novel technique to study lymph nodes outside the body, have published a ‘how to’ guide that seeks to support the wider cancer research community.
In breast cancer, axillary lymph nodes (ALNs) play a vital role in regulating the immune system and maintaining fluid balance. However, they are also the first place where cancer spreads. Studying ALNs has long been challenging because fresh human lymph node tissue is difficult to obtain. Most research relies on preserved tissue samples, which only capture a single stage of the disease, limiting the insights that can be gained. To better understand how cancer spreads and how the immune system responds, scientists have needed improved methods to study these lymph nodes in real-time.
To address this challenge, researchers at King’s adapted normothermic ex vivo perfusion, a technique that has been used for decades to keep animal organs alive outside the body for research. This method helps maintain tissue viability by continuously supplying it with warm, oxygenated fluid, mimicking natural conditions inside the body. By modifying this method, they have developed a way to sustain human lymph nodes for up to 24 hours, keeping them functional outside the patient. This allows scientists to investigate lymph node biology, monitor cancer progression, and test the effects of different drugs in real-time.
Since developing this technique, the researchers have received significant interest from scientists eager to apply it in their own work. By publishing the method as a step-by-step guide, they aim to make it more accessible to the wider research community, helping to advance understanding of cancer metastasis and immune responses.
By making this new approach available in detail to the global research community, the researchers aim to reshape how cancer is studied and treated, particularly in identifying early signs of disease and developing new therapies. Although the method was initially developed for breast cancer research, Dr Naidoo and her team believe it could also be applied to the study of lymph nodes from patients with other types of cancers and diseases.
The REPLICANT circuit offers a unique approach to studying this complex process using a patient’s own tissue, rather than relying on reductionist models. This model is being used to investigate how breast cancer alters the soluble factors produced by lymph nodes for communication and how these changes impact lymph node structure. By publishing this protocol, we hope to enable other researchers to use this model to explore a wide range of questions about these interactions."
Dr Amy Llewellyn, Histopathology Registrar and co-author of the study.
For full details, explore the published protocol and related research in The Journal of Pathology and NPJ Breast Cancer.
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Adjunct/Honorary Senior Lecturer in Translational Pathology
Histopathology Registrar