Abstract
IN a pilot study on the culture of unselected human breast tumours it was found that fibroadenomas which were disrupted mechanically (without enzyme treatment) consistently gave rise to epithelial cell cultures uncontaminated by fibroblasts1. These epithelial cells, which were termed E cells, could not be distinguished from the major class of epithelial cells isolated from lacteal secretions of healthy women2,3. It is not known whether the fibroadenoma yields epithelium which is truly normal (and is thus a fibroma), or whether the epithelium is abnormal in a way not yet identified. Nevertheless, the reproducibility of the cultures from these tumours, together with ease of storage at low temperature, makes them suitable for detailed studies on mammary epithelial growth, and for comparison, not only with lacteal secretion cells, but with the more heterogenous cultures from carcinomas. We describe here some of the growth characteristics and requirements of epithelial cells from fibroadenomas, and in particular their response to epidermal growth factor4, but lack of response to more familiar mammotrophic hormones.
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STOKER, M., PIGOTT, D. & TAYLOR-PAPADIMITRIOU, J. Response to epidermal growth factors of cultured human mammary epithelial cells from benign tumours. Nature 264, 764–767 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/264764a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/264764a0
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