I am using knockout MIAPaCa-2 and ASPC-1 pancreatic cancer cell lines and intend to develop an in vivo tumor model. However, my study involves CD8 T-cell expression analysis, so I cannot use nude mice.

Additionally, if I inject the knockout cell lines directly, will the resulting tumor maintain the knockout status of the cells, and what would the efficiency be in terms of tumor formation and maintaining the gene knockout in vivo?

Any recommendations for the best variant of mice to evaluate both tumor growth and immune response.