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Submitted on December 14, 2001
Accepted on July 23, 2002
1 Departments of Developmental and Molecular Biology and #Obstetrics & Gynecology and Women's Health and #Center for the Study of Reproductive Biology and Women's Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, New York 10461, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Pollard{at}aecom.yu.edu,.
Mammary fat tissue is crucial for the mammary ductal morphogenesis in both fetal and adult mice. There are two kinds of adipocytes, the energy-storing white adipocyte and the energy-dissipating brown adipocyte. The precise identity of the type of adipocyte in the mammary gland has never been investigated, but was always assumed to be white fat. In this study, we show that both white and brown adipocytes are present in the postnatal mammary gland. The amount of brown fat tissue (BAT) examined by histology and electron microscopy correlates with the transcript levels of the uncoupling protein-1 (UCP-1), which is a mitochondrial carrier expressed exclusively in BAT. UCP-1 mRNAs are the highest at prepuberty, decrease upon puberty and are finally undetectable in the adult mammary gland. The analysis of a BAT depleted mouse model showed that depletion of mammary BAT in early postnatal development induces epithelial differentiation. Alveolar structures were formed along all ducts and were functional since they produced ß-casein. However, mammary transplantation experiments indicated that a systemic effect was responsible for epithelium differentiation. Our data suggest that BAT negatively regulates the differentiation of mammary epithelial cells in a systemic manner during the prepubertal ductal outgrowth.
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