ABSTRACT
Mouse models of breast cancer have been used as models of human breast cancer since the 1890s. The landmark description of the histopathology of “spontaneous” mouse mammary cancer was written in 1906 and reviewed in the English literature in 1911. A new era was introduced by genetic engineering that has modeled human breast cancer in well over 200 types of genetically engineered mice (GEM). The advent of genetic engineering has created GEM with unique biological and morphological characteristics that have never been found in the virus-induced mice. Thus, the mouse became the mammalian model to test the oncogenicity of genes associated with human breast cancer. The xenograft models of human breast cancers have been used primarily in molecular imaging studies especially for preclinical drug trials. Direct transplantation of primary human breast cancers into mice is accompanied by rare successful takes, less than 10% in most hands.
