The nude mouse as anin vivo model for human breast cancer invasion and metastasis

Abstract

Human breast cancer xenografts only rarely invade and metastasize in nude mice, and have therefore only had limited use as a model for studying mechanisms involved in breast cancer spreading. However, recent reports describe differences not only between various cell lines but also between strains of immune-deficient mice in terms of providing a model for studies of the invasive and metastatic capability of human breast cancer xenografts. Genetic labelling of human cancer cells with the lacZ gene is described as a specific and highly sensitive method for identification of micrometastases in such a model.

BRAT1 deficiency causes increased glucose metabolism and mitochondrial malfunction

“…Roles of BRAT1 in cell migration were studied with a migration chamber (Figure 2B). Control and BRAT1 knockdown MDA-MA-231 (231), human breast cancer cells, were used for this assay, since MDA-MA-231 cells have been frequently used for cell migration and penetration assay using matrigel [19, 20]. 231 cells were stably transfected with nonspecific shRNA or 4 different BRAT1shRNA, and then antibiotic-resistant clones were selected after 2 weeks as described.…”

Human cancer evolution in the context of a human immune system in mice

“…The A375 tumor model is known to be highly metastatic in immune‐deficient models (Lobos‐Gonzalez et al ., ), and interestingly, the tumors were largely immune cell‐excluding in the BRGS‐HIS model, leading to similar metastatic capacity in the two models. As in immune‐deficient mice (Brunner et al ., ), MDA‐MB‐468 tumors exhibited limited growth and metastases in BRGS‐HIS mice. Recently, non‐cell autonomous IL‐11 stimulation was shown to be sufficient to drive MDA‐MB‐468 tumor growth and metastasis in a xenograft model (Marusyk et al ., ).…”

Reporter genes in transgenic mice

“…Included in transplanted tissues marked in this manner are retina (Gouras et a/., 1992), muscle (Neumeyer etal., 1992;Watt etal., 1993), brain (Shimohama et al, 1989;Gage et al, 1990;Short et al, 1990;Snyderetal., 1992)and liver (Gupta etal., 1993). A further application has been to transplant tumour cells marked with lacZto exploit the sensitivity of this histochemical marker for detecting micrometastases (Lin et al, 1990;Brianner et al, 1992;Briinner et al, 1993), and to study the possible interactions between two different tumour cell types during the development of micrometastases. When two different tumour cell types marked with either lacZ or human alkaline phosphatase were co-injected into nude mice, their respective fates were followed in order to establish whether or not their interaction might play a role in tumour progression (Lin etal., 1992;.…”