Fig. 1.

Schematic of experimental approach used to identify genomic mediators of patient-derived xenograft metastases. PDX tumors were grown in the mammary gland, extracted and digested into single-cell suspensions, and then labeled with lentivirus that encoded for green fluorescent protein and luciferase (GFP + Luc). After expansion in vivo, the cells with the brightest GFP were expanded in the orthotopic location, then used for metastasis studies. Paired-end RNA sequencing was then performed on mammary tumors, normal tissues, and brain, lung, and liver metastases. The sequencing data was then aligned to both the mouse and human reference genomes