Expression array of carcinoma cell Mmp14-targeted MMTV-PyMT mammary tumors

Breast carcinoma cell invasion is thought to depend on the mobilization of the membrane-anchored matrix metalloproteinase, Mmp14/MT1-MMP, to drive the remodeling of extracellular matrix and trigger associated signaling cascades. However, the roles that this proteinase plays during breast tumor progression and invasion in vivo remain undefined. A highly penetrant syngeneic mouse model for luminal B breast cancer driven by the polyoma middle T (PyMT) antigen, in tandem with recently developed Mmp14-floxed mice and MMTV-Cre transgenics that express Cre recombinase throughout the mammary epithelial cell compartment, were used to characterize the impact of conditional Mmp14-targeting on breast carcinoma cell invasion programs in vivo. Transcriptome profiling of intact MMTV-PyMT carcinoma tumors was used to investigate the functional roles of carcinoma cell-derived MT1-MMP in MMTV-PyMT tumor progression and invasion in an unbiased fashion Intact mammary tumor tissue was harvested from conditional knockout [MMTV-Cre+/Mmp14(f/f)] MMTV-PyMT mice and wild-type [Mmp14(f/f)] MMTV-PyMT littermates on a congenic FVB/NJ background at 3-4 months for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays.