Cancer incidence ranged from 32 percent to 52.8 percent in the four strains of mice with one of the culprit receptors or autotaxin. Invasive and/or metastatic tumors were present to varying degrees, with 45.5 percent of the tumors in the LPA3 strain metastasizing.

A number of drugs are in preclinical development that target the receptors and autotaxin, Mills said. "Now we have transgenic mouse models to test drugs to go forward against these targets."

The four transgenic strains of mice have three unusual characteristics that the team believes make them particularly well-suited as a model of human breast cancer. Unlike most other mouse models, these produce breast cancer that is invasive and metastatic, and some tumors that are estrogen-receptor positive. ER-positive disease is the most common type of breast cancer.

mdanderson