Isolation and analysis of different subpopulations of normal human breast epithelial cells early after their infection with a retroviral vector encoding a cell surface marker

The use of gene transfer procedures has greatlyfacilitated the investigation of cell lineage relationships andother developmental processes in a variety of primarytissues. In this report we describe the infectionand selection of primary human breast epithelial cellsusing retroviral vectors (Jzen-HSA-NEO and MSCV-HSA.NEO) containing thecomplete 228 bp coding sequence of a murinecell surface marker (Heat Stable Antigen, HSA) aswell as the neomycin resistance (neo^sup r^) gene. Expressionof the transduced HSA gene was detectable usingeither flow cytometry or immunohistochemistry after staining infectedcells with an anti-murine HSA-specific antibody (M1/69). Expressionof the transduced neo^sup r^ gene conferred resistance toG418. In initial experiments with the MCF-7 breastcancer cell line, continued expression of both markerswas demonstrated in a high proportion of cellsfor at least 4 weeks after their infectionby positive M1/69 staining of cells that hadbeen selected by prior incubation in G418. Evidenceof gene transfer to early stage (< 9days old) primary cultures of normal human breastepithelial cells (15 experiments with cells from 12normal individuals) was also obtained using an infectionprotocol in which these cells were exposed tohelper-free viral supernatants (2 incubations, 4 to 6hr each) after being subcultured for 12 to18 hr to increase their rate of proliferation.The presence of 5-50% (mean=26%) HSA^sup +^ cells was demonstrated in these experiments within 5days after their infection and the HSA^sup +^populationsincluded both myoepithelial and luminal phenotypes. The transduced(HSA^sup +^) cells within both of these subpopulations couldalso be separately isolated by FACS and subcultured.These results should provide an important starting pointfor future studies of genetically modified or markedprimary human breast epithelial cell populations.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]