A putative role for microRNA-205 in mammary epithelial cell progenitors

In an effort to understand the potential role of microRNAs (miRNAs) in mammary-gland stem or progenitor cells, miRNA microarrays were performed on subpopulations of the mouse mammary epithelial cell (MEC) line COMMA-DbGeo. This cell line contains a heterogeneous subpopulation of progenitors characterized by the expression of stem cell antigen 1 (Sca-1; encoded by Ly6a). Microarray analysis indicated that the Sca-1 subpopulations have distinct miRNA expression profiles. Functional studies were performed on miR-205, which was highly expressed in the Sca-1-positive (Sca-1(+)) cells. When miR-205 was overexpressed in vitro, the COMMA-DbGeo cells underwent several significant morphological and molecular changes. miR-205 overexpression led to an expansion of the progenitor-cell population, decreased cell size and increased cellular proliferation. In addition, the colony-forming potential of the two Sca-1 subpopulations was increased. Target prediction for miR-205 indicated that it might regulate the expression of the tumor-suppressor protein PTEN. Overexpression studies using reporter constructs confirmed that PTEN expression is regulated by miR-205. In addition to PTEN, several other putative and previously validated miR-205 targets were identified by microarray analysis, including the previously reported miR-205 targets ZEB1 and ZEB2. Additionally, in normal mouse MECs, high expression of miR-205 was observed in stem-cell-enriched cell populations isolated by FACS using established cell-surface markers.