Cell microenvironments hold key to future stem cell...( as well as many other nearby molecules ...),Health

"With our MEArrays, we can use combinations of proteins from a select tissue to create multiple microenvironments on a single chip about two square centimeters in area," said LaBarge. "We think this approach will give us a much more realistic picture as to how stem and progenitor cells actually behave in vivo."

Said Bissell, a Distinguished Scientist with Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division and one of the world's leading researchers on breast cancer, "We have demonstrated that each discrete cell fate decision requires the integration of multiple pathways, and we have identified combinations of components in the human mammary microenvironment that impose distinct cell fates. These results are exciting because they indicate that we can test a large number of effectors and determine which ones to use to direct the fate of adult stem and progenitor cells. This give hope that one day - sooner rather than later - the information could be used for therapy."

Collaborating with LaBarge and Bissell on this study were Jason Ruth, now at the University of Pennsylvania, Martha Stampfer of Berkeley Lab, Celeste Nelson, now with Princeton University, and Rene Villadsen, Agla Fridriksdottir and Ole Petersen, of the Panum Institute in Denmark.

Human breast tissue harbors two types of epithelial cells: luminal - the cells that are able to produce milk and generally the ones that become cancerous; and myoepithelial the cells that surround the luminal cells and push milk down the ducts to the nipples, but which rarely become cancerous. Like cells in other types of tissue these breast epithelial cells are spawned from stem and progenitor cells that despite being primitive - essentially a cellular blank slate - possess the exact same genome as their differentiated daughters. Once it was widely held that adult stem and progenitor cells i
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