Transcriptome profiling of inflammatory monocytes and macrophages in breast cancer bone metastasis

Macrophages play a critical role in promoting bone metastasis growth. Microarray was used for determining the transcriptional change of macrophages and their progenitor inflammatory monocytes during bone metastasis progression. We sorted bone marrow macrophages (Macs) and Ly6C+ inflammatory monocytes (IMs) from mice bearing MetBo2 bone metastasis and from healthy bone marrow. Labeling and hybridization were done in Einstein Microarray Facility using Affymetrix MoGene 2.0 st chips. A total of 19 samples (10 healthy and 9 bone metastasis, 4-5 replicates for each cell type) was profiled.