Bioengineering of the mammary gland to produce proteins of therapeutic and industrial value is the result of extensive investigation of the physiology of the mammary gland and the ability to generate transgenic animals. Targeting the expression of heterologous proteins to mammary tissue requires a thorough understanding of the biochemical events that coordinate growth and differentiation of the...

PTEN tumor suppressor is frequently mutated in human cancers, including breast cancers. Female patients with inherited PTEN mutations suffer from virginal hypertrophy of the breast with high risk of malignant transformation. However, the exact mechanisms of PTEN in controlling mammary gland development and tumorigenesis are unclear. In this study, we generated mice with a mammary-specific delet...

We studied the effects of selenium (Se) on the inflammatory response in Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus)-infected mastitis-model mice and mammary epithelial cells. In infected mice, Se elicited a dose-dependent decrease in mammary gland pathology that included inflammatory cell infiltration, disorganized acinar structure and mammary cell necrosis. Se decreased inflammation by increasing miR-14...

We have previously shown that non-mammary and tumorigenic cells can respond to the signals of the mammary niche and alter their cell fate to that of mammary epithelial progenitor cells. Here we tested the hypothesis that paracrine signals from mammary epithelial cells expressing progesterone receptor (PR) are dispensable for redirection of testicular cells, and that re-directed wild-type testic...

Suchyta, Steven P., Sue Sipkovsky, Robert G. Halgren, Rachael Kruska, Michael Elftman, Miriam Weber-Nielsen, Michael J. Vandehaar, Lan Xiao, Robert J. Tempelman, and Paul M. Coussens. Bovine mammary gene expression profiling using a cDNA microarray enhanced for mammary-specific transcripts. Physiol Genomics 16: 8–18, 2004. First published October 14, 2003; 10.1152/ physiolgenomics.00028.2003.—A...

Mammary glands, like other skin appendages such as hair follicles and teeth, develop from the surface epithelium and underlying mesenchyme; however, the molecular controls of embryonic mammary development are largely unknown. We find that activation of the canonical WNT/beta-catenin signaling pathway in the embryonic mouse mammary region coincides with initiation of mammary morphogenesis, and t...

An experiment was conducted to study whether piglet growth rate is related to mammary gland size. It involved three primiparous sows and four multiparous sows that were fed ad libitum during the lactation period. The piglets received no creep feed. The weight and teat order of the piglets were recorded. The sows were slaughtered after approximately 4 weeks of lactation (25–28 days). The amounts...

We have previously demonstrated that (guanine-2-)-methyltransferase activity in extracts from 9,10-dimethyl-1,2-benzanthracene-induced rat mammary tumors differs from that of nonneoplastic mammary tissue. In this report, we explore further the nature of these differences by purification and characterization of the two major transfer RNA (tRNA) (guanine-2-)-methyltransferases from transplantable...

Parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP) was originally discovered as a tumor product that causes humoral hypercalcemia of malignancy. PTHrP is now known to be widely expressed in normal tissues and growing evidence suggests that it is an important developmental regulatory molecule. We had previously reported that overexpression of PTHrP in the mammary glands of transgenic mice impaired bran...

During lactation lipoprotein lipase (LPL) is elevated in mammary tissue and depressed in adipose tissue to redirect lipids for incorporation into milk fat. The cellular origin of lipoprotein lipase in mammary tissue is thought to be the mammary epithelial cell which is the predominant cell type noticeable in the lactating gland; however, mammary adipocytes are also present. If lipoprotein lipas...