Approximately 80% of breast cancer diagnoses present as oestrogen receptor-positive (ER+), with ~10% of these patients developing metastatic ER+ breast cancer (mBC), which is still incurable. The distinct lack of models that fully recapitulate the biological processes involved in ER+ mBC has significantly slowed progress towards developing effective treatment options.

This research aims to develop the first biologically relevant preclinical model of ER+ mBC in mice with fully intact immune systems.

In this talk I will summarise the findings from this PhD research which has involved the development of trackable, ER+ breast cancer-like cell lines. These have been used to visualise tumour growth with bioluminescence in the 129S6/SvEvTac mouse background.

Fluorescently labelled sleeping beauty vectors encoding Antares2 or Firefly luciferase were used to transfect SSM3 cells via electroporation. These tagged SSM3 cells were introduced to mice to model spontaneous and experimental metastasis by mammary fat pad or tail vein injections. IVIS Lumina X5 imaging captured luciferase activity at multiple time points over six months following primary tumour removal (spontaneous model) or cell line injection (experimental model). SSM3 metastasis was determine through ex vivo imaging and histological analysis. Primary tumours were processed for FACs , to investigate a potential increase in immunogenicity of the tagged SSM3 cells.

In addition to this, I have recently been working towards establishing the mammary intraductal (MIND) model of breast cancer in the 129S6/SvEvTac background and will briefly summarise the technique and current observations from this model.

Zoom Link

https://otago.zoom.us/j/97756704741?pwd=dHJNSW00dkFSdTk2VW1oSVlqOEJsUT09
Meeting ID: 977 5670 4741
Password: bioc