Mammary stem cells and cancer: roles of Wnt signaling in plain view
-
* Corresponding author: Anthony MC Brown amcbrown@med.cornell.edu
Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, NY 10065, USA
Breast Cancer Research 2010, 12:313 doi:10.1186/bcr2631
Published: 22 September 2010Abstract
The likely roles of Wnt signaling in regulating mammary stem cell behavior have been much discussed, in part because they may underlie the oncogenic effects of Wnt signaling in mammary tissue. Two recent papers add important data to this field. One tests directly the effects of purified Wnt protein on mouse mammary stem cells in culture and finds a specific increase in the proportion of cells with self-renewing stem cell phenotypes. The second identifies a novel target gene of canonical Wnt signaling that may be expressed in stem cells and is induced in both mouse and human mammary tumors associated with Wnt pathway activation.