GATA-3 maintains luminal cell differentiation in the mammary gland and in breast cancer

We have identified GATA-3 as a critical regulator of luminal cell differentiation in the mammary gland. Acute loss of GATA-3 in the adult mammary gland leads to an expansion of an undifferentiated luminal epithelium and the formation of a multi-layered epithelium. Here we report microarray analysis of mammary glands that have undergone acute loss of GATA-3 Keywords: genetic modification Adult GATA-3flox/flox; WAP-rtTA-Cre and GATA-flox/+; WAP-rtTA-Cre mice were administered doxyxcline for 5 days and their mammary glands harvested. Total RNA was extracted by the Trizol method. Het mammary gland total RNA was labeled with Cy5 while Null mammary gland total RNA was labeled with Cy3. Microarray hybridization was performed on spotted oligonucleotide microarrays with 38,000 features. Lowess print-tip normalization and analysis was performed on the Acuity software package (V 4.0)