Characterization of biological features and chemosensitivity of a new experimental lung metastasis model originating from the MXT mouse mammary adenocarcinoma.

The present study shows how an original mouse metastatic lung model was established from the MXT mammary adenocarcinoma. This metastatic model was obtained by injecting the C/MET clone into the tail veins of B6D2F1 mice. The C/MET clone corresponds to one of eleven cell clones that were isolated in vitro from the MXT model. Of these 11 clones, only the C/MET leads to lung metastatic tumor development when injected i.v. into mice. Furthermore, the C/MET clone colonizes the lung only. The present data show that the C/MET metastatic model and the MXT parental line are weakly (if reference is made to the P388 leukemia model) sensitive to adriamycin, clyclophosphamide and etoposide. However, under specific experimental conditions, the chemosensitivity of the C/MET model can be significantly increased. The C/MET model therefore appears to be an interesting pharmacological tool to test new investigational agents with anti-tumor potentialities to lung metastases.