MOUSE MODELS FOR BREAST-CANCER SUSCEPTIBILITY

Breast cancer is the most common form of malignancy in American women. Apart from age, a strong family history of breast cancer confers the highest known risk for neoplastic development by the various etiologic factors identified to date. Four genes have been identified (p53, BRC A1, BRCA5 ATM) that appear to confer substantial predispositions to hu man breast cancer. Gene targeting techniques have been used to create mice with specific defects in these genes. This review describes the s tatus of these mice as models for breast cancer susceptibility and sug gests future research directions which may increase our understanding of breast carcinogenesis. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.