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Multipotent cells from human milk form milk‐secreting alveolar structures in 3‐dimensional culture
Author(s) -
Hartmann Peter Edwin,
Thomas Elizabeth,
Zeps Nikolajs,
Rigby Paul
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.24.1_supplement.206.7
Subject(s) - myoepithelial cell , cytokeratin , population , progenitor cell , microbiology and biotechnology , chemistry , cell culture , in vitro , epithelium , biology , immunology , stem cell , medicine , biochemistry , immunohistochemistry , genetics , environmental health
Our objective was to characterize the differentiation potential of cells isolated from human milk in vitro . The total cell population was isolated from expressed human milk samples and cultivated in monolayer culture, then subcultured into 3‐dimensional biomatrices. Differentiation was tracked using the markers CD49f (progenitor), p63 (progenitor), 14‐3‐3σ (Sigma; differentiating epithelial), Cytokeratin 14 (CK14, myoepithelial) and Cytokeratin 18 (CK18; luminal). Expansion of a non‐adherent p63 + population occurred in the first five days of growth, followed by upregulation of Sigma upon adherence in monolayer culture. After 16–21 days of growth, mutually exclusive subsets of the adherent population expressed either CK14 or CK18. In 3‐dimensional biomatrices, single p63 + /CD49f + cells generated organized, multicellular and polarized alveolus‐like spheres with a luminal layer of CK18 + cells and a basal layer of CD49f + cells that expressed milk proteins in response to prolactin stimulation. This implies that human milk cells provide a novel non‐invasive source of primary cells from lactating tissue to generate in vitro surrogates of mammary secretory epithelium.