title: The more things change... the more things change: developmental plasticity of tumor-initiating mammary epithelial cells.
abstract: In our haste to fi nd and eliminate breast cancer stem cells, it appears as though we may have missed something. Contrary to current thought, a recent paper by Meyer and colleagues demonstrates developmental plasticity of breast cancer cells with respect to the CD24 cell surface marker, such that CD44(pos);CD24(pos) and CD44(pos);CD24(low/-) cells are able to give rise to one another in an activin/nodal-dependent manner, and that cells derived from single cells of either phenotype are capable of forming tumors as xenografts. If confirmed clinically, these data imply that simply targeting the CD44(pos);CD24(low/-) breast cancer stem cell for breast cancer treatment may be destined to fail unless this plasticity is taken into account and prevented.
authors.forename: Michael T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Lewis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001940:Breast / Q000473:pathology*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D051927:CD24 Antigen / Q000032:analysis; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D018960:Hyaluronan Receptors / Q000032:analysis; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000473:pathology*
chemical_list: D051927:CD24 Antigen; C497889:CD24 protein, human; C497483:CD44 protein, human; D018960:Hyaluronan Receptors