Fig. 2: MCL-1 level is important within specific breast cancer subtypes

a Comparison of MCL1 mRNA expression across 2999 breast tumours²⁹ segregated into subtypes⁵⁶, Basal/CL (claudin low) n = 296, ERBB2 n = 716, Luminal n = 1959 and Normal-like, n = 28, Wilcoxon test Basal/CL v rest P = 7e-10. b Comparison of MCL1 mRNA expression across 1904 breast tumours²⁸ segregated into PAM50 + CL subtypes, Basal/CL n = 398, ERBB2 n = 220, Luminal A n = 697, Luminal B n = 461, Normal-like n = 140, Wilcoxon test Basal/CL v rest P = 6e-11. c–k Comparison of MCL-1 protein levels in patient cohort by c–e ER status, n = 181 ER negative, n = 246 ER positive; f–h ERBB2 status, n = 335 ERBB2 negative, n = 90 ERBB2 positive; i–k Triple-negative (TN) status, n = 118 TN, n = 308 non-TN. For c, f, i each point represents the average MCL-1 histoscore of an individual patient from 2–3 independent biopsy cores and bars indicate mean ± SD **P < 0.01, unpaired t-test. For Kaplan–Meier graphs, data are plotted for patients where follow-up data were available. Kaplan–Meier survival plots of breast cancer-specific survival segregated by MCL-1 protein level are shown d, e, g, h, j, k and P-values indicated on plots, Log-rank (Mantel-Cox) test. Black line indicates MCL-1 low cases and red line MCL-1 high cases