Peer-Reviewed Publication
Dev Cell2025;60(17):2218-2236.September 8, 2025Journal Article
Defining breast epithelial cell types in the single-cell era.
G Kenneth Gray1, Eric G Carlson2, Tatyana Lev3, Bailey Marshall4, Austin D Reed5, Alex P Sánchez-Covarrubias6, Alecia-Jane Twigger7, Aleix Puig-Barbe8, Aatish Thennavan9, Ayodele Omotoso6, Lyndsay M Murrow10, Deeptiman Chatterjee11, Siyuan He12, Sara Pensa5, Brian Aevermann4, Norbert K Tavares4, Natalie Chen13, Jason A Hilton14, Kerrigan Blake15, Yunlong Liu16, Kiet Phong17, Zev J Gartner18, Devon A Lawson19, Alexander Swarbrick20, Camila O Dos Santos11, Sophia H L George6, Joan S Brugge21, Mark A LaBarge2, Harikrishna Nakshatri22, Nicholas Navin23, Kai Kessenbrock24, Walid T Khaled25
1Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Ludwig Center at Harvard, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA. Electronic address: gkennethgray@gmail.com.
2Beckman Research Institute, City of Hope, Duarte, CA, USA.
3Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
4Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Foundation, Redwood City, CA, USA.
5Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK; Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
6Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA; Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA.
7Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK; Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
8EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Genome Campus, Cambridge, UK.
9Department of Systems Biology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA.
10Genentech, South San Francisco, CA, USA.
11Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA.
12Department of Systems Biology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA; Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA.
13Hematology and Oncology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
14Department of Genetics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
15Cellarity, Cambridge, MA, USA.
16Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
17Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA.
18Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, San Francisco, CA, USA.
19Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA; Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA.
20Cancer Ecosystems Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW, Australia; St. Vincent's Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
21Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Ludwig Center at Harvard, Boston, MA, USA.
22Department of Surgery, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA; Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA; Veterans Affairs Roudebush Medical Center, Indianapolis, IN, USA.
23Department of Systems Biology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA; Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, USA.
24Department of Biological Chemistry, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA. Electronic address: kai.kessenbrock@uci.edu.
25Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK; Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. Electronic address: wtk22@cam.ac.uk.
Abstract
Single-cell studies on breast tissue have contributed to a change in our understanding of breast epithelial diversity that has, in turn, precipitated a lack of consensus on breast cell types. The confusion surrounding this issue highlights a possible challenge for advancing breast atlas efforts. In this perspective, we present our consensus on the identities, properties, and naming conventions for…
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