Fig. 4: Black American (BA)-Associated Community Exhibits Unique Spatial Clustering in Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) Spatial Transcriptomics Data.

a Overview of the approach used to identify the spatial localization of BA- and White American (WA) -associated communities in TNBC tissues. BA or WA-associated communities, defined by IMC-derived protein markers of interacting cell types, were converted to gene names and interrogated in a racially balanced TNBC spatial transcriptomics (ST) dataset to assess spatial patterns of co-localization for the query genes. b The top BA-associated community (BA-community 1) was interrogated in the ST dataset³⁰. Protein symbols (blue) and corresponding gene symbols (black) are shown. c Representative example of spatial co-localization for BA-community 1 in 10 BA and 10 WA TNBC samples from the ST dataset. BA-community 1 genes show strong co-localization (marked by black outlines) in BA TNBC, but not in WA TNBC. The scale bar represents the strength of co-localization, defined as the averaged log-transformed normalized read count. d Quantification of spatial clustering of co-localized spots for BA-community 1 in BA (blue) and WA (red) TNBC tumors. Each bar represents the average of 10 BA and 10 WA samples shown in panel (c). Spatial clustering of BA-community 1 was significantly higher in BA TNBC compared to WA TNBC, with statistical significance determined by the T-test. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.