PyMT-1099, a murine derived cell line is a breast cancer specific model for EMT

Background: Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) has been implicated in metastasis, drug resistance, survival under stress and also conferring stem cell-like traits to cancer cells. However, several of the studies have been carried out using model systems that don’t appropriately recapitulate all stages of the dynamic process of EMT. Hence, there is a need to overcome this limitation by development of a model system that allows us to mimic each stage of EMT and accurately assess the plastic changes associated with it. Methods: We have derived a cancer cell line from the PyMT-MMTV model of breast cancer, named PyMT-1099 cells, and undertaken a detailed characterization of the morpho-genetic changes it undergoes during a TGF-induced EMT. Further, we have also performed high throughput transcriptomics on PyMT-1099 cells undergoing EMT in a high resolution kinetic of TGF treatment. Results: We show that PyMT-1099 cells undergo an EMT comparable to the classically used immortalized NMuMG cells as assessed by morphological, and marker expression changes on TGFtreatment. Further, PyMT-1099 cells can also migrate in vitro in response to TGF treatment. These cells are also tumorigenic and lead to metastasis formation when transplanted into immunocompromised mice. Conclusion: In this study we report the development of PyMT-1099 cells as an excellent tool to model and study breast cancer-associated EMT both in vitro and in vivo and show that these cells overcome the limitations posed by other cellular systems currently being used to study EMT