ArticleThe American journal of pathology2010
Alternatively activated macrophages and collagen remodeling characterize the postpartum involuting mammary gland across species.
Article in The American journal of pathology, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 187 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
187 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 299 citations in OpenAlex.
- Breastfeeding is Possible: A Systematic Review on the Feasibility and Challenges of Breastfeeding Among Breast Cancer Survivors of Reproductive Age.Annals of surgical oncology · 2021Pooled it
- Prognosis of pregnancy-associated breast cancer: a meta-analysis.BMC cancer · 2020Pooled it
- Abrupt involution induces inflammation, estrogenic signaling, and hyperplasia linking lack of breastfeeding with increased risk of breast cancer.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2019Pooled it
- Reproductive factors and the expression of stromal markers in benign breast biopsy samples.British journal of cancer · 2026Article
- Review
- Postpartum breast cancer as a distinct oncologic entity: linking physiological tissue remodelling to tumor biology and clinical translation.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2026Review
- Branching out: the diverse roles of stem and progenitor cells in mammary gland development.Journal of mammary gland biology and neoplasia · 2026Review
- The extracellular matrix in inflammation and cancer.Molecular biomedicine · 2026Review
- The Metabolic-Immune Axis: Amino Acids and Immune Cell Dynamics in Mammary Gland Development and Remodeling.International journal of biological sciences · 2026Review
- The association between parity, age of first full term pregnancy and invasive lobular breast cancer: a case-only analysis.Cancer treatment and research communications · 2026Article
- Semaphorin-7A promotes macrophage-mediated mammary epithelial and ductal carcinoma in situ invasion.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2025Article
- Impact of Postpartum Diagnosis on Survival of Women with Inflammatory Breast Cancer.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2025Article
- Little women: the relevance and reliance on mouse models for mammary gland research and next steps for translation.Journal of mammary gland biology and neoplasia · 2025Review
- Advancing Breast Cancer Management Through an Enhanced Understanding of Disease Heterogeneity from Initiation to Metastasis.The American journal of pathology · 2025Article
- Differential ER stress responses during lactation and postpartum outcomes in mice depending on their mitochondrial genotype.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Extracellular matrix dynamics in tumor immunoregulation: from tumor microenvironment to immunotherapy.Journal of hematology & oncology · 2025Review
- Semaphorin7A and PD-L1 cooperatively drive immunosuppression during mammary involution and breast cancer.Cell reports · 2025Article
- Predicting breast cancer risk and its association to biopsychosocial factors among Taiwanese women with a family history of breast cancer: an investigation based on the Gail model.BMC medical genomics · 2025Article
- A Review on Bioengineering the Bovine Mammary Gland: The Role of the Extracellular Matrix and Reconstruction Prospects.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Oncogenic activation of SMYD3-SHCBP1 promotes breast cancer development and is coupled with resistance to immune therapy.Cell death & disease · 2025Article
127 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent pregnancy correlates with decreased survival for breast cancer patients compared with non-pregnancy-associated breast cancer. We hypothesize that postpartum mammary involution induces metastasis through wound-healing programs known to promote cancer. It is unknown whether alternatively activated M2 macrophages, immune cells important in wound-healing and experimental tumorigenesis that also predict poor prognosis for breast cancer patients, are recruited to the normal involuting gland. Macrophage markers CD68, CSF-1R, and F4/80 were examined across the pregnancy and involution cycle in rodent and human mammary tissues. Quantitative immunohistochemistry revealed up to an eightfold increase in macrophage number during involution, which returned to nulliparous levels with full regression. The involution macrophages exhibit an M2 phenotype as determined by high arginase-1 and low inducible nitric oxide synthase staining in rodent tissue, and by mannose receptor expression in human breast tissue. M2 cytokines IL-4 and IL-13 also peaked during involution. Extracellular matrix (ECM) isolated from involuting rat mammary glands was chemotactic for macrophages compared with nulliparous mammary ECM. Fibrillar collagen levels and proteolysis increased dramatically during involution, and denatured collagen I acted as a strong chemoattractant for macrophages in cell culture, suggesting proteolyzed fibrillar collagen as a candidate ECM mediator of macrophage recruitment. M2 macrophages, IL-4, IL-13, fibrillar collagen accumulation, and proteolysis of collagen are all components of tumor promotional microenvironments, and thus may mediate promotion of breast cancers arising in the postpartum setting.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.