| First Author | Pal B | Year | 2017 |
| Journal | Nat Commun | Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 1 | Pages | 1627 |
| PubMed ID | 29158510 | Mgi Jnum | J:360312 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6105980 | Doi | 10.1038/s41467-017-01560-x |
| Citation | Pal B, et al. (2017) Construction of developmental lineage relationships in the mouse mammary gland by single-cell RNA profiling. Nat Commun 8(1):1627 |
| abstractText | The mammary epithelium comprises two primary cellular lineages, but the degree of heterogeneity within these compartments and their lineage relationships during development remain an open question. Here we report single-cell RNA profiling of mouse mammary epithelial cells spanning four developmental stages in the post-natal gland. Notably, the epithelium undergoes a large-scale shift in gene expression from a relatively homogeneous basal-like program in pre-puberty to distinct lineage-restricted programs in puberty. Interrogation of single-cell transcriptomes reveals different levels of diversity within the luminal and basal compartments, and identifies an early progenitor subset marked by CD55. Moreover, we uncover a luminal transit population and a rare mixed-lineage cluster amongst basal cells in the adult mammary gland. Together these findings point to a developmental hierarchy in which a basal-like gene expression program prevails in the early post-natal gland prior to the specification of distinct lineage signatures, and the presence of cellular intermediates that may serve as transit or lineage-primed cells. |
