A unique club-shaped epithelial structure that develops at the tip of the mammary duct at the onset of puberty under the action of circulating hormones. [ http://www.informatics.jax.org/accession/anna ]
Term information
TEBs proliferate, ramify, and actively invade the fad pad to allow the formation of a complex branching structure; this process of branching morphogenesis concludes at ~10-12 weeks of age in mice, when TEBs have traversed the length of the fat pad and a fully developed ductal tree has formed
terminal end buds (TEBs) consist of an outer layer of undifferentiated myoepithelial progenitor cells ('cap cells'), and a multilayered inner core of luminal epithelial cells ('body') fated to form the walls of the ductal lumen; both layers have high rates of mitosis, consistent with a motile organ dedicated to ductal morphogenesis