PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - SHIBATA, MASA-AKI
AU  - SHIBATA, EIKO
AU  - MORIMOTO, JUNJI
AU  - EID, NABIL A.S.
AU  - TANAKA, YOSHIHISA
AU  - WATANABE, MASAHITO
AU  - OTSUKI, YOSHINORI
TI  - An Immunocompetent Murine Model of Metastatic Mammary Cancer Accessible to Bioluminescence Imaging
DP  - 2009 Nov 01
TA  - Anticancer Research
PG  - 4389--4395
VI  - 29
IP  - 11
4099  - http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/29/11/4389.short
4100  - http://ar.iiarjournals.org/content/29/11/4389.full
SO  - Anticancer Res2009 Nov 01; 29
AB  - Background: Many areas of research, including gene and pharmacological therapeutics, would benefit from longitudinal in vivo monitoring methodologies. To investigate the feasibility of one such methodology, we developed a murine mammary cancer model amenable to sequential bioluminescent imaging of tumor growth and metastasis in living animals. Materials and Methods: Metastatic mouse mammary carcinoma BJMC3879 cells were transfected to stably express firefly luciferase and inoculated into immunocompetent female BALB/c mice. Results: Sequential analysis using bioluminescent imaging showed increasing photon counts correlated to expanding mammary tumor volumes; in addition, strong signals from axillary, mandibular, femoral, thoracic and abdominal regions in mice were histopathologically determined to be due to metastases, the majority of which occurred in lymph nodes and lungs. Conclusion: The bioluminescent mouse mammary cancer model we established provides a method for quantifiable longitudinal in vivo imaging that can be used in gene and pharmacological therapy applications.