Analyzing Cell-ECM Interactions in Adult Mammary Gland by Transplantation of Embryonic Mammary Tissue from Knockout Mice

Understanding the function of ECM and cell-matrix interactions in mammalian development has reached new levels of sophistication with the introduction of gene knockout technology. Indeed, two of the chapters in this volume provide detailed methods for producing mice with deletions in specific ECM genes (see Chapters 13 and 14 ). However, in some knockout mice, animals die during late embryogenesis or shortly after birth. In such cases, it is possible to analyze embryonic developmental phenotypes, but it is less easy to determine the in vivo role of cell-matrix interactions in adult tissues.