Distinct organ-specific metastatic potential of individual breast cancer cells and primary tumors
J. Clin. Invest. Andy J. Minn, et al. 115:44 doi:10.1172/JCI22320 [Go to this article.]

Figure 7
Genome-wide “unsupervised” classification of the SCPs correlates with metastatic phenotype. (A) A multidimensional scaling plot illustrates the relationship between the various SCPs and their primary metastatic tropism based on genes that are differentially expressed across the SCPs starting from the more than 22,000 present on the Affymetrix U133A GeneChip. SCPs are color-coded according to their primary metastatic tropism (green for lung, red for bone, and blue for weakly metastatic). The plot demonstrates that SCPs with the same primary metastatic tropism group together in 3-dimensional space. Each group is each enclosed in a circle. MCF10A is shown by itself (gold dot). (B) Hierarchical clustering of the SCPs based on genes differentially expressed reveals similar relationships and a similar association with metastatic tropism, as summarized in the table below the dendrogram. (C) A Venn diagram demonstrates the relationship between the genes differentially expressed across the SCPs and a previously described bone metastasis gene set. Of 1,267 differentially expressed genes, 50 of the 127 bone metastasis genes (102 are unique) overlap. (D) A Northern blot showing the expression levels of 4 of the bone metastasis genes among the SCPs used in this study (boxed and labeled by SCP, with the color of the label corresponding to tissue tropism). GAPDH, loading control.