Breast tumors: of mice and women
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* Corresponding author: Max S Wicha mwicha@umich.edu
University of Michigan, Comprehensive Cancer Center, 1500 E Medical Center Drive, 6303 Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA
Breast Cancer Research 2010, 12:108 doi:10.1186/bcr2569
See related research article by Lim et al., http://breast-cancer-research.com/content/12/2/R21
Published: 27 May 2010Abstract
For the past 20 years the mouse has served as a workhorse for studying the molecular underpinnings of human breast cancer. While some genetically engineered mouse mammary tumor models do not accurately recapitulate human disease (that is, the MMTV-Neu model and HER2-overexpressing human cancers), additional tumor models exist for studying the initiation, progression, and treatment of human breast cancer. The relationships between normal mouse mammary epithelial cells and tumor cells, however, have remained poorly defined. A recent article in Breast Cancer Research has shed light on these relationships.