Canine cell line, IPC-366, as a good model for the study of inflammatory breast cancer.

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is an aggressive type of cancer with poor survival in women. Inflammatory mammary cancer (IMC) in dogs is very similar to human IBC and it has been proposed as a good surrogate model for study the human disease. The aim was to determine if IPC-366 shared characteristics with the IBC cell line SUM149. The comparison was conducted in terms of ability to grow (adherent and nonadherent conditions), stem cell markers expression using flow cytometry, protein production using western blot and tumorigenic capacity. Our results revealed that both are capable of forming long-term mammospheres with a grape-like morphology. Adherent and nonadherent cultures exhibited fast growth in vivo. Stem cell markers expressions showed that IPC-366 and SUM149 in adherent and nonadherent conditions has mesenchymal-like characteristics, E-cadherin and N-cadherin, was higher in adherent than in nonadherent cultures. Therefore, this study determines that both cell lines are similar and IPC-366 is a good model for the human and canine disease.