Expression of deregulated MYC with activated NeuNT in mammary gland developed mammary tumors with molecular heterogeneity. Expression of deregulated MYC with activated NeuNT in mammary gland developed mammary tumors with molecular heterogeneity

The goal of this study is to investigate the role of deregulated c-MYC in cooperation with activated NeuNT (mutated rat HER2) in mammary tumor molecular heterogeneity. We monitored female mice through two cycles of pregnancy/lactation in order to activate Blg-Cre expression in mammary gland after the second cycle. MYC-NeuNT mice develop tumors between 4 and 12 weeks post Blg-Cre activation, H&E images from these tumors showed histologic heterogeneity. NeuNT mice developed tumors between 28 to 44 weeks post Blg-Cre activation that also showed histologic heterogeneity. Overall design: ROSA-LSL-MYC mice were crossed with LSL-NeuNT and Blg-Cre mice to get mice that express both MYC and NeuNT in response to Cre-mediated recombination in the mammary gland. We monitored the female mice through two cycles of pregnancy/lactation then activated and waited for tumors to reach 20mm in diameter (end point). We collected 14 tumors from MYC-NeuNT mice, 4 tumors from NeuNT mice , and 3 normal mammary gland samples from control Myc mice without Blg-Cre. One piece of tissue from each sample was used to extact total RNA with Trizol according to manufactuer's protocol.