Publications by Laura Battista

Mimicking women’s endocrine milieu in mice for women’s health-related studies

Cathrin Brisken, Laura Battista, Valentina Scabia, Céline Berthe Constantin, Csaba Ferenc László

To improve preclinical studies and their translation, patient-derived xenografts (PDXs) are increasingly used. They have human-specific tumor characteristics and reflect intra and inter-tumor heterogeneity. However, the endocrine milieu differs between hum ...

Springer Science and Business Media LLC2025

Rapid autopsies to enhance metastatic research: the UPTIDER post-mortem tissue donation program

Cathrin Brisken, Laura Battista

Research on metastatic cancer has been hampered by limited sample availability. Here we present the breast cancer post-mortem tissue donation program UPTIDER and show how it enabled sampling of a median of 31 (range: 5-90) metastases and 5-8 liquids per pa ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Optimized Modeling of Metastatic Triple-Negative Invasive Lobular Breast Carcinoma

Cathrin Brisken, Laura Battista, Georgios Sflomos

Simple Summary Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) is the second most common histologic subtype of breast cancer and is often detected at an advanced stage. Up to 30% of ILC cases relapse and present a challenge for treatment. Unfortunately, there are few mod ...

MDPI2023

Estrogen receptor positive breast cancers have patient specific hormone sensitivities and rely on progesterone receptor

Cathrin Brisken, Giovanna Ambrosini, Ayyakkannu Ayyanan, Laura Battista, Valentina Scabia, Fabio De Martino, Csaba Ferenc László, Andrea Agnoletto

Estrogen and progesterone receptor (ER, PR) signaling control breast development and impinge on breast carcinogenesis. ER is an established driver of ER + disease but the role of the PR, itself an ER target gene, is debated. We assess the issue in clinical ...

Nature Portfolio2022

Intraductal xenografts show lobular carcinoma cells rely on their own extracellular matrix and LOXL1

Cathrin Brisken, Giovanna Ambrosini, Ayyakkannu Ayyanan, Georgios Sflomos, Laura Battista, Philipp Bucher, Valentina Scabia, Maryse Fiche, Fabio De Martino, Patrik Aouad

Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) is the most frequent special histological subtype of breast cancer, typically characterized by loss of E‐cadherin. It has clinical features distinct from other estrogen receptor‐positive (ER+) breast cancers but the molecul ...

2021

Contraceptive progestins with androgenic properties stimulate breast epithelial cell proliferation

Cathrin Brisken, Giovanna Ambrosini, Laura Battista, Philipp Bucher, Valentina Scabia, Fabio De Martino, Marie Shamseddin, Céline Berthe Constantin, Csaba Ferenc László

Hormonal contraception exposes women to synthetic progesterone receptor (PR) agonists, progestins, and transiently increases breast cancer risk. How progesterone and progestins affect the breast epithelium is poorly understood because we lack adequate mode ...

2021

Characterization of circulating breast cancer cells with tumorigenic and metastatic capacity

Cathrin Brisken, Georgios Sflomos, Laura Battista

Functional studies giving insight into the biology of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) remain scarce due to the low frequency ofCTCs and lack of appropriate models. Here, we describe the characterization of a novelCTC-derived breast cancer cell line, designa ...

2020

Intraductal patient-derived xenografts of estrogen receptor α-positive breast cancer recapitulate the histopathological spectrum and metastatic potential of human lesions

Cathrin Brisken, Georgios Sflomos, Ayyakkannu Ayyanan, Laura Battista, Valentina Scabia, Maryse Fiche, Patrik Aouad, Valérian Charles Robert Dormoy

Estrogen receptor α-positive (ER-positive) or 'luminal' breast cancers were notoriously difficult to establish as patient-derived xenografts (PDXs). We and others recently demonstrated that the microenvironment is critical for ER-positive tumor cells; when ...

2018

Applying Whole Organ Clearing Techniques To Spinal Cord Injury: A Survey Of Techniques

Grégoire Courtine, Thierry Laroche, Olivier Burri, Quentin Barraud, Romain Guiet, Laura Battista, Newton Cho

MARY ANN LIEBERT2018

A Preclinical Model for ERα-Positive Breast Cancer Points to the Epithelial Microenvironment as Determinant of Luminal Phenotype and Hormone Response

Cathrin Brisken, Georgios Sflomos, Valentina Scabia, Ayyakkannu Ayyanan, Rachel Marcone, Laura Battista, Maryse Fiche, Valérian Charles Robert Dormoy

Seventy-five percent of breast cancers are estrogen receptor α positive (ER(+)). Research on these tumors is hampered by lack of adequate in vivo models; cell line xenografts require non-physiological hormone supplements, and patient-derived xenografts (PD ...

Elsevier2016