Abstract
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women. Despite significant therapeutic advances in recent years, breast cancer also still causes the greatest number of cancer-related deaths in women, the vast majority of which (> 90%) are caused by metastases. However, very few mouse mammary cancer models exist that faithfully recapitulate the multistep metastatic process in human patients. Here we assessed the suitability of a syngrafting protocol for a Myc-driven mammary tumor model (WAP-Myc) to study autochthonous metastasis. A moderate but robust spontaneous lung metastasis rate of around 25% was attained. In addition, increased T cell infiltration was observed in metastatic tumors compared to donor and syngrafted primary tumors. Thus, the WAP-Myc syngrafting protocol is a suitable tool to study the mechanisms of metastasis in MYC-driven breast cancer.