A Geometrically-Constrained Mathematical Model of Mammary Gland Ductal Elongation Reveals Novel Cellular Dynamics within the Terminal End Bud

摘要

Author Summary Our paper describes a mathematical model of mammary ductal elongation during pubertal development. We make several conclusions that will be of interest to scientists studying mammary gland biology, epithelial tube formation, and branching morphogenesis. First, our model indicates that a common measurement of developmental outgrowth ( percent fat pad filled') underestimates the total growth and leads to mischaracterization of mutant phenotypes. Second, we show that cap cells, a population enriched with putative mammary stem cells, do not contribute to the luminal lineage as previously hypothesized. Further, we find that a high percentage of proliferation in these cells is not used productively to actually form the mammary duct. We believe our model has future application to other branching organs and also for the modeling of disease states in the breast.