Editorial

The more things change ... the more things change: developmental plasticity of tumor-initiating mammary epithelial cells

Michael T Lewis

• Correspondence: Michael T Lewis mtlewis@bcm.edu

Author Affiliations

Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Department of Radiology, One Baylor Plaza, BCM600, Room N1210, Houston, TX 77030, USA

Breast Cancer Research 2009, 12:101 doi:10.1186/bcr2459

Published: 18 January 2010

Abstract

In our haste to find and eliminate breast cancer stem cells, it appears as though we may have missed something. Contrary to current thought, a recent paper by Meyer and colleagues demonstrates developmental plasticity of breast cancer cells with respect to the CD24 cell surface marker, such that CD44^pos; CD24^pos and CD44^pos; CD24^low/- cells are able to give rise to one another in an activin/nodal-dependent manner, and that cells derived from single cells of either phenotype are capable of forming tumors as xenografts. If confirmed clinically, these data imply that simply targeting the CD44^pos; CD24^low/- breast cancer stem cell for breast cancer treatment may be destined to fail unless this plasticity is taken into account and prevented.