Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Editorial
. 2010;12(1):101.
doi: 10.1186/bcr2459.

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

Michael T Lewis
Editorial

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

Michael T Lewis. Breast Cancer Res. 2010.

Abstract

In our haste to fi nd 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.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Meyer MJ, Fleming JM, Ali MA, Pesesky M, Ginsburg E, Vonderhaar BK. Dynamic regulation of CD24 and the invasive, CD44posCD24neg phenotype in breast cancer cell lines. Breast Cancer Res. 2009;11:R82. doi: 10.1186/bcr2449. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Al-Hajj M, Wicha MS, Benito-Hernandez A, Morrison SJ, Clarke MF. Prospective identification of tumorigenic breast cancer cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2003;100:3983–3988. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0530291100. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Fillmore CM, Kuperwasser C. Human breast cancer cell lines contain stemlike cells that self-renew, give rise to phenotypically diverse progeny and survive chemotherapy. Breast Cancer Res. 2008;10:R25. doi: 10.1186/bcr1982. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sheridan C, Kishimoto H, Fuchs RK, Mehrotra S, Bhat-Nakshatri P, Turner CH, Goulet R Jr, Badve S, Nakshatri H. CD44+/CD24- breast cancer cells exhibit enhanced invasive properties: an early step necessary for metastasis. Breast Cancer Res. 2006;8:R59. doi: 10.1186/bcr1610. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shipitsin M, Campbell LL, Argani P, Weremowicz S, Bloushtain-Qimron N, Yao J, Nikolskaya T, Serebryiskaya T, Beroukhim R, Hu M, Halushka MK, Sukumar S, Parker LM, Anderson KS, Harris LN, Garber JE, Richardson AL, Schnitt SJ, Nikolsky Y, Gelman RS, Polyak K. Molecular definition of breast tumor heterogeneity. Cancer Cell. 2007;11:259–273. doi: 10.1016/j.ccr.2007.01.013. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types