Evidence by cellular mosaicism for monoclonal metastasis of spontaneous mouse mammary tumors.

Female (SHN X C3H/He)F1 mice carrying spontaneous mammary tumors with cellular mosaicism with respect to isozymes of phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) showed a high incidence of lung metastases. On resection of successively appearing mammary tumors, mice survived a maximum of 8 tumors. In these mice with multiple primary mammary tumors and multiple metastases, not only each individual metastasis but also all the metastases in the same lung had the same pattern of PGK isozymes and the same histologic type in the PGK-mosaic background of the host, indicating the monoclonal origin of these metastases. In several cases, this single pattern of metastatic colonies coincided with that of only one of several primary tumors, indicating that this tumor had metastasized. In these cases, these tumors were not necessarily the earliest of the primary tumors, and they were not located in any particular site.