title: An immunocompetent murine model of metastatic mammary cancer accessible to bioluminescence imaging.
abstract: 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.
  
  
  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.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Osaka Medical College, Takatsuki, Osaka 569-8686, Japan. shibatam@art.osaka-med.ac.jp
authors.forename: Masa-Aki
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Shibata
authors.forename: Eiko
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Shibata
authors.forename: Junji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Morimoto
authors.forename: Nabil A S
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Eid
authors.forename: Yoshihisa
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: Masahito
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: Yoshinori
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Otsuki
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D005260:Female; D049409:Luciferases, Firefly / Q000032:analysis* / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics; D008163:Luminescent Measurements / Q000379:methods; D008325:Mammary Neoplasms, Experimental / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000473:pathology; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D014162:Transfection
chemical_list: D049409:Luciferases, Firefly