Induction of epidermoid differentiation by cyclic adenine nucleotide in cultured mammary tumors of mice.

In search of the degree of responsiveness of mammary adenocarcinomas to signals of differentiation, mouse mammary tumors were induced to undergo a course of development leading to multiple foci of squamous metaplasia, and subsequently a differentiation manifested by marked keratinization. The mammary tumors had spontaneously arisen in the preneoplastic mammary outgrowths of the transplantable lines, D1, MH5, and MH9, after their long-term implantation in gland-free mammary fat pads of virgin BALB/c mice. The inductions were produced in cultured fragments of mammary tumors by incubation for 9 days in the cyclic adenine nucleotide, N6-O2'-dibutyryl cyclic AMP, at 0.1 mM, without or with prostaglandins E1, E2, and B1, each at 5 micrograms/ml, and 1 microM papaverine. The N6-O2'-dibutyryl cyclic AMP alone was as active in the mammary tumors derived from the D1 and MH9 preneoplastic outgrowths as was the entire mixture of inducers. Intracellular cyclic adenine nucleotide may presumably be the specific mediator of the inductive process, presumably being elevated synergistically by entry of the N6-O2'-dibutyryl cyclic AMP, by induction of adenyl cyclase by prostaglandin E1 and E2, and through inhibition of phosphodiesterases by papaverine. Epidermidalization occurred to equal extent in well-differentiated and anaplastic mammary adenocarcinomas, indicative that mammary tumor progression did not affect the susceptibility to this course of development and differentiation. Mammary gland epithelium retains its susceptibility to multifocal epidermidalization in organ culture throughout the gradient of neoplastic transformation and progression toward decreasing growth regulation, starting from normal mammary gland, next preneoplasia (both reported previously), then well-differentiated neoplasia, and lastly anaplastic cancer. The findings support the existence of a common or closely associated pool of progenitor cells for the alveolar and epidermoid courses of development and differentiation in mammary gland. Induction of squamous metaplasia and abundant keratinization in both the well-differentiated and anaplastic mammary adenocarcinomas caused some of the cells to differentiate terminally and to die.