Establishment of cultured primary acral melanoma cells and animal models for Chinese patients

Acral melanoma is the major subtype of melanoma in Chinese patients. However, a majority of current studies focused on non‐acral melanoma. Most immortalized melanoma cell lines and primary cells were not from acral melanoma. Besides, there are rarely reports about methods for establishing primary acral melanoma cell cultures and related animal models. Here, we present four new human primary acral melanoma cell lines. To determine the mutational profile of the established primary melanoma cells for future targeted use, we performed exome sequencing. We next examined cell proliferation of the primary acral melanoma cells by colony‐formation assays and CCK8 assay. We also evaluated the proliferative and metastatic potential of XYAM‐4 in vivo. We report a detailed protocol for establishing cultured primary acral melanoma cells for Chinese patients and related animal models. We also summarize the features in our acral melanoma cell lines and the existing acral melanoma cell lines. This will provide an effective research tool for research on drug responses and individualized treatment for Chinese patients and comparative studies of melanomas between western and Chinese populations.