Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Many aspects of breast cancer metastasis remain poorly understood, despite its clinical importance. In this issue of the JCI, Winkler et al. have applied an elegant patient-derived xenograft (PDX) model to map the transcriptomes of single cells in matched primary tumors and lung metastases across 13 breast cancer PDX models. They identified distinct transcriptional changes associated with metastatic evolution in lowly and highly metastatic primary tumors. Furthermore, by classifying the "epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity" (EMP) state of single cells, they revealed that considerable EMP heterogeneity exists among primary and metastatic human breast cancer cells. However, the EMP profile of a tumor does not change substantially upon metastasis. These findings give an unprecedentedly detailed view into the transcriptional heterogeneity and evolution of metastatic human breast cancer.
DOI: 10.1172/jci183971
Author: Melissa Q. Reeves
Institutions: University of Utah, Huntsman Cancer Institute
Language: English
Topic: Cancer Cells and Metastasis
Subfield: Oncology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $5,200
OpenAlex ID: W4402124572