Pre-treatment of mice with tumor-conditioned media accelerates metastasis to lymph nodes and lungs: a new spontaneous breast cancer metastasis model

Current spontaneous metastasis models require a long period of observation after establishment of primary tumors to see significant metastatic progression. The degree of metastasis is not consistent among animals: this is problematic since it requires the use of a large number of animals to obtain reliable statistics. Here we report that pre-treatment of animals with tumor-conditioned media (TCM) consistently accelerates spontaneous metastasis in breast cancer. An inguinal breast tumor model facilitated by TCM showed robust anterior metastasis to the axillary and brachial lymph nodes (LN), and the lungs compared to the serum-free media treated group. The LN in TCM-treated animals showed enhanced angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. Primary tumors and lungs in TCM-treated animals showed enhanced lymphangiogenesis with no significant change in angiogenesis. TCM-treated animals also showed metastatic dissemination to abdomen from the primary injection site: this would generally enhance metastasis to other organs. In sum, the addition of TCM pre-treatment to current metastasis models results in accelerated and robust metastasis which would enable more efficient evaluation of anti-metastatic agents.