The future of mammary stem cell biology: the power of in vivo transplants – authors' response
-
* Corresponding author: Gilbert H Smith gs4d@nih.gov
1 Mammary Stem Cell Biology Section, Mammary Biology and Tumorigenesis Laboratory, CCR, NCI, Convent Drive, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA
2 Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030, USA
Breast Cancer Research 2008, 10:403 doi:10.1186/bcr1993
Published: 29 May 2008First paragraph (this article has no abstract)
The letter from Lindeman and coworkers [1] conveys their concern regarding the future of prospective isolation and characterization of individual cells that may be characterized as mammary stem cells upon in vivo transplantation. As they have pointed out, the difficulties encountered in identifying specific mammary epithelial subtypes by different levels of fluorescence (particularly for membrane components that decorate most if not all mammary epithelial cells) leads to differential reporting and 'resultant confusion' and 'underscores the need for improved standardization'.