Molecular factors involved in breast cancer metastasis to bone

Signal transduction pathways involved in organ preferred metastasis

Breast cancer metastasis is the main cause of treatment failure and death in patients with breast cancer. Cancer metastasis is known to be a non-random process, with each cancer type having its own preferred sites of metastasis. In the metastatic process, a wide number of molecules, including various cytokines, chemokines and growth hormones, have been proven to be responsible. We want to investigate which signalling pathways are responsible for metastatic growth in different organs, and which molecules that might be involved.
To achieve this, we will up -or down regulate candidate genes in breast cancer cell lines and further inject these transfected cells into rats. Any changes in the metastatic pattern will then be investigated by isolation of tumour cells by immunomagnetic bead selection and quantitative PCR on lysate. For more information contact Evita Lindholm.