The molecular chronology of mammary epithelial cell fate switching

The adult mammary gland is maintained by lineage-restricted progenitor cells through pregnancy, lactation, involution, and menopause. Injury resolution, transplantation-associated mammary gland reconstitution, and tumorigenesis are unique exceptions, wherein mammary basal cells gain the ability to reprogram to a luminal state. Here, we leverage newly developed cell-identity reporter mouse strains, and time-resolved single-cell epigenetic and transcriptomic analyses to decipher the molecular programs underlying basal-to-luminal fate switching in vivo. We demonstrate that basal cells rapidly reprogram toward plastic cycling intermediates that appear to hijack molecular programs we find in bipotent fetal mammary stem cells and puberty-associatiated cap cells. Loss of basal-cell specifiers early in dedifferentiation coincides with activation of Notch and BMP, among Others. Pharmacologic blockade of each pathway disrupts basal-to-luminal transdifferentiation. Our studies provide a comprehensive map and resource for understanding the coordinated molecular changes enabling terminally differentiated epithelial cells to transition between cell lineages and highlights the stunning rapidity by which epigenetic reprogramming can occur in response to disruption of tissue structure.

cell plasticity; dedifferentiation; facultative progenitor; mammary gland; multiome resource; single-cell RNA-sequencing; single-nucleus ATAC-sequencing; tissue injury repair; transdifferentiation.