An Engineered Niche Delineates Metastatic Potential of Breast Cancer

We aimed to identify metastatic disease prior to the formation of an overt secondary tumor in triple-negative breast cancer using sister cell lines 4T1 (metastatic), 4T07 (invasive, non-metastatic), and 67NR (non-metastatic). We used a porous, polycaprolactone scaffold, that serves as an engineered metastatic niche, to identify metastatic disease through the changing microenvironment. Overall design: Comparative gene expression profiling analysis of RNA-seq data of scaffolds, lungs, spleens, and primary tumors of mice inoculated with the sister cell lines or a healthy control