Open AccessModeling Breast Cancer Using CRISPR-Cas9–Mediated Engineering of Human Breast Organoids
Author(s) -
Johanna F. Dekkers,
James R. Whittle,
François Vaillant,
Huei Rong Chen,
Caleb A. Dawson,
Kevin Liu,
Maarten H. Geurts,
Marco J. Herold,
Hans Clevers,
Geoffrey J. Lindeman,
Jane E. Visvader
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of the national cancer institute
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.797
H-Index - 356
eISSN - 1460-2105
pISSN - 0027-8874
DOI - 10.1093/jnci/djz196
Subject(s) - pten , crispr , cancer research , organoid , breast cancer , biology , carcinogenesis , cancer , transplantation , progenitor cell , stem cell , medicine , pi3k/akt/mtor pathway , gene , genetics , apoptosis
Breast cancer is characterized by histological and functional heterogeneity, posing a clinical challenge for patient treatment. Emerging evidence suggests that the distinct subtypes reflect the repertoire of genetic alterations and the target cell. However, the precise initiating events that predispose normal epithelium to neoplasia are poorly understood. Here, we demonstrate that breast epithelial organoids can be generated from human reduction mammoplasties (12 out of 12 donors), thus creating a tool to study the clonal evolution of breast cancer. To recapitulate de novo oncogenesis, we exploited clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-Cas9 for targeted knockout of four breast cancer-associated tumor suppressor genes (P53, PTEN, RB1, NF1) in mammary progenitor cells from six donors. Mutant organoids gained long-term culturing capacity and formed estrogen-receptor positive luminal tumors on transplantation into mice for one out of six P53/PTEN/RB1-mutated and three out of six P53/PTEN/RB1/NF1-mutated lines. These organoids responded to endocrine therapy or chemotherapy, supporting the potential utility of this model to enhance our understanding of the molecular events that culminate in specific subtypes of breast cancer.