title: Slugging their way to immortality: driving mammary epithelial cells into a stem cell-like state.
abstract: Delineating the molecular factors that define and maintain the mammary stem cell state is vital for understanding normal development and tumourigenesis. A recent study by Guo and colleagues identifies two master transcriptional regulators of mammary stem cells, Slug and Sox9, ectopic expression of which confers stem cell attributes on differentiated mammary epithelial cells. Slug and Sox9 expression was also shown to determine in vivo metastatic potential of human breast cancer cell lines. Understanding these factors in the context of normal lineage differentiation is an important step toward elucidating the mammary epithelial cell hierarchy and the origins of cancer stem cells.
authors.forename: Kelly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Soady
authors.forename: Matthew J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Smalley
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D058750:Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D014411:Neoplastic Stem Cells / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000473:pathology; D055758:SOX9 Transcription Factor / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D000071250:Snail Family Transcription Factors; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: C000604407:SNAI1 protein, human; D055758:SOX9 Transcription Factor; D000071250:Snail Family Transcription Factors; D014157:Transcription Factors