Characterizing breast cancer lung metastatic lesions in host environments with or without NK cells by RNA-seq

We demonstrated that natural killer (NK) cells selectively suppress single circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and monoclonal metastasis compared to multicellular CTC clusters and polyclonal metastasis. To better understand how NK cells influence overall metastatic evolution, we generated spontaneous AT3 breast cancer lung metastasis in immunodeficient Rag2-/-IL2rg-/- mice, and treated mice with or without adoptive transfer of NK cells. RNA-seq on individual laser-capture microdissected lesions confirmed the infiltration of NK cells. The expression of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) genes strongly correlated with expression of genes indicating NK cell activation, consistent with experimental data from our lab and others. RNA-seq on AT3 breast cancer lung metastatic lesions from Rag2-/-IL2rg-/- mice (with or without adoptive transfer of NK cells).