Abstract:Background: Invasion is a fundamental step in metastasis, the leading cause of breast cancer-related death. We have shown previously that primary breast tumors invade collectively as clusters of cancer cells (Cheung et al. Cell 2013). These clusters are led by a small subpopulation of cancer cells that highly express the basal epithelial protein cytokeratin 14 (K14) and other stem cell genes (Cheung et al. PNAS 2016). K14+ leader cells metastasize as clusters, reverting to a proliferative growth state upon col… Show more
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.