Fig 2: Endothelial cells in TNBC biopsies contribute to metastasis. (a) CNET plot shows the DEGS of EC (ATP1B3) and predicts metastasis. (b) CNET plot shows the DEGS of EC (HSPA1B) and predicts metastasis.

Fig 3: scRNA-seq analysis showed three subclusters in breast-associated biopsies. (a) UMAP plot showed integration of endothelial cells isolated from normal breast and TNBC tissues. Three subclusters were identified based on genetic profiles. (b) Violin plots showed the expression pattern of three feature genes ATP1B3, HSPA1B, and KRT7. (c) Immunofluorescent staining of 3 endothelial cell subpopulations: EC (ATP1B3), EC (HSPA1B), and EC (KRT7). Endothelial cells were labelled with CD31. (d) Heatmap showed expression pattern of top 20 genes from each endothelial cell subclusters. (e) Dot plot revealed that each endothelial cell subcluster possesses distinct biological features.

Fig 4: Comparison of TNBC endothelial cell subclusters with the normal human breast tissue. (a) Split UMAP plot showed the distribution of endothelial cell subclusters in both normal biopsies and TNBC biopsies. (b) Stacked bar plot showed a comparison of the frequency of endothelial cell subclusters, normal vs TNBC biopsies. (c) Volcano plots showed the distribution of DEGs calculated from endothelial cell subcluster EC (ATP1B3) and EC (HSPA1B). (d) Dot plots showed up and downregulated pathways in the endothelial cell subcluster EC (ATP1B3) and EC (HSPA1B).