CCAAT/enhancer binding protein beta (C/EBPß), a transcription factor, has been shown to be involved in normal mammary gland development by a series of knockout and transgenic studies showing not only deregulated development, but also alterations in cell fate. I am investigating the role of C/EBPß in Stem/Progenitor cells which drives this phenotype due to their involvement in development and cell fate.  There are 2 major studies currently ongoing to study this:

1.)     Using lentivirus containing an shRNA sequence for cMyc I will infect primary mouse mammary epithelial cells containing a deletion of C/EBPß using Ad-Cre recombination technology. These cells will be characterized in-vitro and in-vivo by transplanting into cleared fat pads and examining outgrowth. cMyc has been shown to be overexpressed 12-fold in C/EBPß KO mammary glands and it will be interesting to see if knock down of cMyc rescues the phenotype.

2.)     Lentiviruses will be constructed containing a strong promoter driving one of the three isoforms of C/EBPß. Each isoform plays a different role and is shown to be overexpressed/repressed at various critical stages of development. We will characterize mammary epithelial cells that have been transduced with these viruses to determine the specific role of each isoform and will conduct transplantation studies to determine their role in development.

---