Local regression of breast tumors following intramammary ganciclovir administration in double transgenic mice expressing neu oncogene and herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase.

Females from a mouse lineage transgenic for the activated rat neu oncogene under the control of the mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV) long terminal repeat (LTR) all develop breast tumors with high reproducibility within the first 2-3 months of life. These animals were crossed with mice from a lineage transgenic for the herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene (HSVtk) under the control of its own promoter and polyoma enhancer. Double transgenic mice (for both neu and tk) developed breast neoplasias with the same kinetics as the neu-only mice. Tumor-bearing double transgenic mice, treated intratumorally with the antiviral agent ganciclovir (GCV), showed an inhibiting effect on tumor growth. However, this effect was not seen either on GCV-treated neu-only transgenic mice or on saline-injected controls. This suggests that tk-engineered breast tumors are susceptible to GCV administered locally, and implies that neu-mice could be a useful model for testing the effectiveness of HSVtk-bearing vectors followed by systemic GCV on breast cancer cells.