Journal ArticleDOI
Detection and analysis of mammary gland stem cells.
TLDR
Assays used to detect mammary stem and progenitor cells, some of the properties of these cells and their progeny and how they relate to the cancer stem cells that drive breast tumour growth are focused on.Abstract:
Emerging evidence from a variety of tissue types, including the mammary gland, suggests that normal stem and progenitor cells are the likely targets for malignant transformation, and that these transformed cells can function as cancer stem cells that drive tumour growth. In order to develop therapies that target these cancer stem cells, it is essential to determine the molecular mechanisms that regulate the growth and differentiation of these cells and their normal counterparts. To this end, a number of quantitative robust clonal assays have been developed that can detect the presence of human and mouse mammary stem and progenitor cells. These assays, when used in conjunction with cell-sorting strategies, have permitted the prospective isolation and characterization of a variety of cell types, including stem cells. Evidence to date indicates that these stem cells exhibit properties of basal mammary cells, possess extensive self-renewal properties, and are capable of generating a large number of phenotypically-distinct progenitor cells, many of which display characteristics of luminal cells. This review article will focus on the assays used to detect mammary stem and progenitor cells, some of the properties of these cells and their progeny and how they relate to the cancer stem cells that drive breast tumour growth.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Choosing the right cell line for breast cancer research
TL;DR: The issues surrounding the use of breast cancer cell lines as experimental models are discussed, in light of these revised clinical classifications, and suggestions for improving their use in translational breast cancer research are put forward.
Journal ArticleDOI
Normal and neoplastic nonstem cells can spontaneously convert to a stem-like state
Christine L. Chaffer,Ines Brueckmann,Christina Scheel,Alicia J. Kaestli,Paul A. Wiggins,Leonardo O. Rodrigues,Mary W. Brooks,Ferenc Reinhardt,Ying Su,Kornelia Polyak,Lisa M. Arendt,Charlotte Kuperwasser,Brian Bierie,Robert A. Weinberg +13 more
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that normal and CSC-like cells can arise de novo from more differentiated cell types and that hierarchical models of mammary stem cell biology should encompass bidirectional interconversions between stem and nonstem compartments.
Journal ArticleDOI
Eyes wide open: a critical review of sphere-formation as an assay for stem cells.
TL;DR: A historical perspective of the evolution of the neurosphere assay is provided and limitations in the use of sphere-forming assays in the context of neurospheres are highlighted.
Journal ArticleDOI
Distinct stem cells contribute to mammary gland development and maintenance
Alexandra Van Keymeulen,Ana Rocha,Marielle Ousset,Benjamin Beck,Gaëlle Bouvencourt,Jason R. Rock,Neha Sharma,Sophie Dekoninck,Cédric Blanpain +8 more
TL;DR: In postnatal unperturbed mammary gland, both luminal and myoepithelial lineages contain long-lived unipotent stem cells that display extensive renewing capacities, as demonstrated by their ability to clonally expand during morphogenesis and adult life as well as undergo massive expansion during several cycles of pregnancy.
Journal ArticleDOI
Histological types of breast cancer: How special are they?
TL;DR: The associations between the molecular taxonomy of breast cancer and histological special types are reviewed, the possible origins of the heterogeneity of breast cancers are discussed, and an approach for the identification of novel therapeutic targets based on the study of histologicalspecial types of Breast cancer is proposed.
References
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Mutation selection and the natural history of cancer.
TL;DR: Three possible protective mechanisms are discussed and it is shown how they could explain various features of the natural history of certain common cancers of man.
Journal ArticleDOI
Tumor Growth Need Not Be Driven by Rare Cancer Stem Cells
Priscilla N. Kelly,Aleksandar Dakic,Aleksandar Dakic,Jerry M. Adams,Jerry M. Adams,Stephen L. Nutt,Stephen L. Nutt,Andreas Strasser,Andreas Strasser +8 more
TL;DR: It is suggested that the low frequency of tumor-sustaining cells observed in xenotransplantation studies may reflect the limited ability of human tumor cells to adapt to growth in a foreign (mouse) milieu.
Journal ArticleDOI
Role of Notch signaling in cell-fate determination of human mammary stem/progenitor cells
Gabriela Dontu,Kyle W. Jackson,Erin McNicholas,Mari J. Kawamura,Wissam M. Abdallah,Max S. Wicha +5 more
TL;DR: It is suggested that Notch signaling plays a critical role in normal human mammary development by acting on both stem cells and progenitor cells, affecting self-renewal and lineage-specific differentiation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Reconstruction of functionally normal and malignant human breast tissues in mice
Charlotte Kuperwasser,Tony E. Chavarria,Min Wu,Greg Magrane,Joe W. Gray,Loucinda Carey,Andrea L. Richardson,Robert A. Weinberg +7 more
TL;DR: An orthotopic xenograft model is developed in which both the stromal and epithelial components of the reconstructed mammary gland are of human origin, allowing for studies of human epithelial morphogenesis and differentiation in vivo and underscores the critical role of heterotypic interactions in human breast development and carcinogenesis.
Journal ArticleDOI
Gata-3 is an essential regulator of mammary-gland morphogenesis and luminal-cell differentiation
Marie Liesse Asselin-Labat,Kate D. Sutherland,Kate D. Sutherland,Holly E. Barker,Holly E. Barker,Richard M. Thomas,Mark Shackleton,Mark Shackleton,Mark Shackleton,Natasha C. Forrest,Lynne Hartley,Lorraine Robb,Frank Grosveld,Jacqueline van der Wees,Geoffrey J. Lindeman,Geoffrey J. Lindeman,Jane E. Visvader +16 more
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that Gata-3 deficiency leads to an expansion of luminal progenitors and a concomitant block in differentiation, and introduced into a stem cell-enriched population induced maturation along the alveolar luminal lineage.