Acknowledgments:This work was supported by grants from the PlanCancer («Systems Biology of Renal Cell Carcinoma using an Experimental RCC model» (C18005GS, SystemsRCC)) and from the university Bordeaux (G2P project) to AB. LC and AE were supported by post-doctoral fellowships from the Region "Nouvelle Aquitaine". The Crispr/cas9 construct was gratefully provided by Michel Tremblay (Goodman Cancer Center, McGill, University). The authors would like to thank the lentiviral production plateform Vect'UB for EGFP lentivirus, the "service commun des animaleries" for animal production and housing, and the Bordeaux Imaging Center (BIC). 2 AbstractIn order to discover molecular pathways and players in renal cancer development and metastasis, we developed a mouse model to generate sequentially more aggressive and specialized cell lines. Multiple cell lines for primary tumor growth, survival in the blood circulation and lung metastasis or metastatic spread from the primary tumor were generated and analyzed using a multi-layered approach which includes large-scale transcriptome, genome and methylome analyses. Transcriptome and methylome analyses demonstrated distinct clustering in three different groups. Remarkably, DNA sequencing did not show significant genomic variations in the different groups which indicates absence of clonal selection during the in vivo amplification process. Transcriptome analysis revealed several markers and signatures of tumor aggressiveness which were validated, at the mRNA and protein level, in patient cohorts from TCGA, local biobanks and clinical trials. This also includes soluble markers. In particular, SAA2 and CFB were highly predictive for survival and tumor progression. Methylome analysis of full-length DNA allowed clustering of the same groups and revealed clinically predictive signatures. We also uncovered IL34 as a key regulator of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) progression which was also functionally validated in vivo, and a mathematical model of IL34-dependent primary tumor growth and metastasis development was provided. These results indicate that such multilayered analysis in a RCC animal model leads to meaningful results that are of translational significance. 3