The study and comprehension of the molecular mechanisms underlying cancer biology strongly rely on mouse modeling. An ideal mouse model should have molecular, histopathological, and etiological characteristics as close as possible to those of the corresponding human tumors. Among solid tumors, colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the malignancies that best suits reproduction in an animal model: it evolves through a progressive set of molecular events and is generally associated with a precise histopathology and a neat cataloging of stages and grades. The development of refined CRC mouse models over several decades has seen them recently evolve toward sophisticated systems that ever more closely approximate the human pathology, with different models addressing different human CRC subtypes. In particular, a metastatic CRC model has been seen as a "holy grail" in this field, and we describe in this review the path taken to achieve metastatic models and discuss the path forward.

中文翻译：

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大肠癌转移小鼠模型的途径。

对癌症生物学基础分子机制的研究和理解强烈依赖于小鼠模型。理想的小鼠模型应具有与相应人类肿瘤尽可能接近的分子，组织病理学和病因学特征。在实体瘤中，结直肠癌（CRC）是最适合在动物模型中繁殖的恶性肿瘤之一：它通过一系列分子事件进行进化，并且通常与精确的组织病理学和清晰的阶段和等级分类相关。数十年来，精致的CRC小鼠模型的发展已使它们最近朝着更接近人类病理学的复杂系统发展，其中不同的模型处理不同的人类CRC亚型。特别是，转移性CRC模型被视为“