Strain-specific spontaneous and NNK-mediated tumorigenesis in Pten+/- mice.

Pten is a negative regulator of the Akt pathway, and its inactivation is believed to be an etiological factor in many tumor types. Pten+/- mice are susceptible to a variety of spontaneous tumor types, depending on strain background. Pten+/- mice, in lung tumor-sensitive and -resistant background strains, were treated with a tobacco carcinogen, 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK), to determine whether allelic Pten deletion can cooperate with NNK in carcinogenesis in lung or other tissues.