Stk11 Xenograft-Applicable mouse models

Metabolic tumor suppression runs through Stk11, the mouse ortholog of human STK11 (LKB1), a serine and threonine kinase that must complex with the pseudokinase STRADA and the scaffold CAB39 to adopt an active conformation, whereupon it phosphorylates the activation loop threonine of AMPK alpha subunits and of twelve related kinases including the SIK, NUAK, MARK, and BRSK families, linking energy stress to mTORC1 restraint, epithelial polarity, and CRTC-dependent transcription. Germline heterozygous inactivation causes Peutz-Jeghers syndrome with hamartomatous polyposis, and somatic biallelic loss co-occurs with KRAS mutation in lung adenocarcinoma, producing immunologically cold, STING-silenced tumors whose SIK dependence and serine metabolism define distinct vulnerabilities. Germline nulls die in midgestation from vascular and placental defects, so conditional nulls combined with Kras LSL-G12D and viral Cre delivery are the workhorse design, while kinase-dead or Peutz-Jeghers missense knockins separate catalytic from scaffolding function. Choose allele class by endpoint: polyposis, tumor immunophenotype, or metabolic inhibitor response.

Stk11 engineered hosts can be tuned for xenograft take rate and growth kinetics depending on tumor lineage.