Human mammary progenitor cell fate decisions are products of interactions with combinatorial microenvironments.

ABSTRACT: In adult tissues, multi-potent progenitor cells are some of the most primitive members of the developmental hierarchies that maintain homeostasis. That progenitors and their more mature progeny share identical genomes, suggests that fate decisions are directed by interactions with extrinsic soluble factors, ECM, and other cells, as well as physical properties of the ECM. To understand regulation of fate decisions, therefore, would require a means of understanding carefully choreographed combinatorial interactions. Here we used microenvironment protein microarrays to functionally identify combinations of cell-extrinsic mammary gland proteins and ECM molecules that imposed specific cell fates on bipotent human mammary progenitor cells. Micropatterned cell culture surfaces were fabricated to

SUBMITTER: LaBarge MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2933184 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature