Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Apr 15;35(4):618-632.e6.
doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2019.02.010. Epub 2019 Mar 28.

Intraclonal Plasticity in Mammary Tumors Revealed through Large-Scale Single-Cell Resolution 3D Imaging

Affiliations
Free article

Intraclonal Plasticity in Mammary Tumors Revealed through Large-Scale Single-Cell Resolution 3D Imaging

Anne C Rios et al. Cancer Cell. .
Free article

Erratum in

Abstract

Breast tumors are inherently heterogeneous, but the evolving cellular organization through neoplastic progression is poorly understood. Here we report a rapid, large-scale single-cell resolution 3D imaging protocol based on a one-step clearing agent that allows visualization of normal tissue architecture and entire tumors at cellular resolution. Imaging of multicolor lineage-tracing models of breast cancer targeted to either basal or luminal progenitor cells revealed profound clonal restriction during progression. Expression profiling of clones arising in Pten/Trp53-deficient tumors identified distinct molecular signatures. Strikingly, most clones harbored cells that had undergone an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, indicating widespread, inherent plasticity. Hence, an integrative pipeline that combines lineage tracing, 3D imaging, and clonal RNA sequencing technologies offers a comprehensive path for studying mechanisms underlying heterogeneity in whole tumors.

Keywords: 3D imaging; EMT; Elf5; breast cancer; cell-of-origin; clonal competition; lineage tracing; luminal progenitor; plasticity; tumor suppressor.

PubMed Disclaimer

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances