title: Mammary stem cells come of age, prospectively.
abstract: Two recent reports have contributed direct evidence for the existence of a pluripotent mouse mammary epithelial stem cell. In both reports, the investigators have prospectively isolated an enriched fraction of mammary stem cells using fluorescence-activated cell sorting from freshly dispersed epithelial cells. This fraction of cells, upon transplantation in limiting dilution (in some cases as a single cell), produces complete mammary development within the host mammary fat pad. These studies extend and confirm earlier work that demonstrated that retroviral-tagged mammary fragments produce complete functional mammary glands comprising their clonal progeny upon fat-pad transplantation. This technical advance opens the possibility to use similar methodologies to isolate and characterize human breast epithelial stem cells, and elucidate their role in regeneration and neoplasia.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Mammary Biology and Tumorigenesis, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. gs4d@nih.gov
authors.forename: Gilbert H
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D051927:CD24 Antigen / Q000502:physiology; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002469:Cell Separation; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000166:cytology; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D006801:Humans; D039503:Integrin alpha6 / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D019012:Integrin beta1 / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D008321:Mammary Glands, Animal / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology; D042361:Mammary Glands, Human / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology; D051379:Mice; D023421:Models, Animal; D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*
chemical_list: D051927:CD24 Antigen; D039503:Integrin alpha6; D019012:Integrin beta1