Figure 4:

Simplified schematic of prostate lineage hierarchy in the developing prostate. A rare stem cell population resides within the stem cell niche and in response to cues, undergoes asymmetric self-renewal, giving rise to a daughter stem and a daughter bipotent progenitor cell. The progenitor cell undergoes transit amplification and lineage commitment to unipotent basal and luminal progenitor cells that give rise, upon further divisions to differentiated basal, luminal and rare neuroendocrine epithelial cells. Markers for the stem and differentiated cells are shown in the boxes. We propose that estrogens and EDCs target the stem and progenitor cell populations to affect growth and lineage commitment pathways.