Fig. 1
From: Somatic loss of estrogen receptor beta and p53 synergize to induce breast tumorigenesis
K14Cre-mediated conditional inactivation of ERβ alone does not predispose to mammary tumors. a RT-PCR analysis of total RNA from mammary glands of 8-week-old K14CreERβ F/F and ERβ F/F (control) mice with primers that amplify a sequence which spans exons 3 and 4 of ERβ cDNA. Mammary glands from control mice express a 430-bp ERβ mRNA whereas those from K14CreERβ F/F mice express a shorter transcript (259 bp) that lacks exon 3. Ablation of exon 3 was shown previously to induce splicing between exons 2 and 4 which through a frameshift in the open reading frame creates two in-frame stop codons. b Immunohistochemical analysis of mammary glands from K14CreERβ F/F and ERβ F/F mice for ERβ expression. ERβ staining is seen predominantly in nuclei of epithelial cells and in some myoepithelial cells. Scale bars, 50 μm. c Incidence of spontaneous mammary tumors in K14CreERβ F/F and ERβ F/F mice. Kaplan–Meier mammary tumor-free mouse survival curves for K14CreERβ F/F (blue; n = 14) and ERβ F/F (green; n = 4) females. ER estrogen receptor (Color figure online)