Colon-26

Colon-26 cells are used to establish a cachectic mouse model for studying cancer cachexia, which is a syndrome of progressive loss of skeletal muscle mass and adipose tissue, causing weight loss and weakness. After inoculation of colon-26 cells, the following syndromes were observed in the transplanted mice: the sustaining and extensive weight loss as tumor growth, hypoglycemia, hypercorticism, and disorders of hepatic functions. With the growth of colon-26 tumor, the skeletal muscle and adipose tissues were both progressively lost, and the muscle cross-sectional area and muscle strength were reduced. Colon-26-induced muscle depletion may involve activation of skeletal muscle proteolytic systems.The cytokine IL-6 is essential but not entirely sufficient for causing cachexia. Hence, anti-IL-6 antibody can be considered as an effective way to prevent the weight loss induced by cachexia. Otherwise, colon-26 cell line can be used for metastasis studies. The injection of colon-26 cell line into the spleen of wild-type mice induced the expression of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) and the formation of subsequent liver metastasis, potentially mediated by TNF receptor p55 signaling..