A role for microRNAs in maintenance of mouse mammary epithelial progenitor cells
Abstract
microRNA (miRNA) expression profiles are often characteristic of specific cell types. The mouse mammary epithelial cell line, Comma-Dβ, contains a population of self-renewing progenitor cells that can reconstitute the mammary gland. We purified this population and determined its miRNA signature. Several microRNAs, including miR-205 and miR-22, are highly expressed in mammary progenitor cells, while others, including let-7 and miR-93, are depleted. Let-7 sensors can be used to prospectively enrich self-renewing populations, and enforced let-7 expression induces loss of self-renewing cells from mixed cultures.
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Footnotes
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↵3 Corresponding author.
↵3 E-MAIL hannon{at}cshl.edu; FAX (516) 367-8874.
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Supplemental material is available at http://www.genesdev.org.
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Article is online at http://www.genesdev.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gad.1616307
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- Received September 17, 2007.
- Accepted October 30, 2007.
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Freely available online through the Genes & Development Open Access option.
- Copyright © 2007, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press