Fig. 4

A cluster 2 subpopulation signature predicts poor patient outcomes and reflects glycosphingolipid and innate immunity pathways. a Heatmap depicting the cluster assigned to each cell (top) and the corresponding expression of three signatures related to aggressive disease behavior: 70-gene prognostic signature (PS), 49-gene metastatic burden signature (MBS), and 354-gene residual tumor signature (RTS) (rows). b Violin plots representing the distribution of expression among cells within the indicated clusters of the three signatures related to aggressive disease behavior. Black squares represent average expression of each signature among the cells of the corresponding cluster. c Kaplan–Meier survival curves for TNBC patients in the METABRIC cohort by expression quartiles of the cluster 2-derived gene signature (left). Higher expression of the signature is significantly associated with worse patient outcome (log-rank test, p = 0.0173). The other three signatures related to aggressive disease behavior are not predictive of survival (right). Separation on quartiles is for visualization purposes. d Heatmap demonstrating expression of genes in the glycosphingolipid metabolism and innate immunity pathways in the epithelial clusters (indicated at top) across all patients. Cluster 2 is significantly enriched for expression of genes in both pathways