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. 2011 Dec;3(12):726–741. doi: 10.1002/emmm.201100801

Figure 4. The identified methylation patterns might be related to the cell type of origin of the tumours concerned.

Figure 4

Comparison of gene expression signatures of several normal mammary epithelial subpopulations (Lim et al, 2009) with gene expression and DNA methylation profiles of our six DNA methylation-based groups of patients in the main set.

  • A-C. Box plots of MaSC (A), luminal progenitor (B) and luminal mature (C) signature scores for each of the six methylation breast cancer groups, based on their gene expression profiles. Cluster 3 displayed the highest luminal progenitor signature score (p = 0.001 vs. clusters 2 and 4; p < 0.001 vs. other clusters; (B)), whereas the luminal mature signature score was higher for clusters 1, 4, 5 and 6 (p < 0.001 for each of these clusters vs. clusters 2 and 3, except for cluster 4 vs. cluster 2 where p = 0.019; (C)). Cluster 2 was not associated with any of the three signatures.
  • D-F. Box plots of MaSC (D), luminal progenitor (E), and luminal mature (F) signature scores for each of the six methylation breast cancer groups, based on their DNA methylation profiles. A strong anti-correlation was observed between gene expression and DNA methylation data for the luminal progenitor and mature signatures (compare (E) with (B) and (F) with (C), respectively) (respective Pearson's coefficients: −0.59, p = 1.10−9 and −0.70, p = 6.10−14). It was weaker for the MaSC signature (compare (D) with (A); Pearson's coefficient: −0.47, p = 4.10−6).