Long-lived unipotent Blimp1-positive luminal stem cells drive mammary gland organogenesis throughout adult life.

ABSTRACT: The hierarchical relationships between various stem and progenitor cell subpopulations driving mammary gland morphogenesis and homoeostasis are poorly understood. Conditional inactivation experiments previously demonstrated that expression of the zinc finger transcriptional repressor Blimp1/PRDM1 is essential for the establishment of epithelial cell polarity and functional maturation of alveolar cells. Here we exploit a Prdm1.CreERT2-LacZ reporter allele for lineage tracing experiments. Blimp1 expression marks a rare subpopulation of unipotent luminal stem cells that initially appear in the embryonic mammary gland at around E17.5 coincident with the segregation of the luminal and basal compartments. Fate mapping at multiple time points in combination with whole-mount confocal imaging revea

SUBMITTER: Elias S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5696348 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature