Effect of mast cells on the phenotype of breast cancer cells

To understand the mechanisms by which mast cells affect the features of breast cancer cells, we collected spontaneous mammary tumors from MMTV-PyMT mice, C57BL/6 wild type or back-crossed with Wsh mice which lack mast cells. Gene expression profiling was performed to select the genes which are differentially expressed in the presence or absence of mast cells. Gene expression profiles were generated for 8 spontaneous mammary tumors from MMTV-PyMT transgenic C57BL/6 mice and 7 tumors from MMTV-PyMT Wsh mice at 20 weeks of age