Expression data from freshly isolated mouse mammary luminal cells

The mammary luminal cell compartment is heterogeneous. In adult virgin mice, it contains clonogenic luminal progenitors and non-clonogenic luminal cells expressing estrogen and progesterone receptors that can be discrimated by their cell surface expression of ICAM-1. We have separated ICAM1+ luminal progenitors and ICAM- non-clonogenic luminal cells and analyzed their transcriptomic profiles. After showing that the luminal progenitor population overexpressed Met, Trp53 and numerous p53 target genes, we analyzed how the p53 and Met signaling pathways cooperate to control the function and plasticity of luminal progenitors. Single cells were prepared from seven distinct pools of at least 12 mammary glands and sorted by flow cytometry according to their CD24 and ICAM-1 expression. Seven paired samples of CD24+ ICAM1+ (LuPos) and CD24+ ICAM1- (LuNeg) cells were collected for RNA extraction and hybridization on Affymetrix microarrays.