Fig. 1: Established breast cancer CTCs-derived xenograft displays characteristics comparable to the primary tumour and is metastatic.

a CDX_IBP_01 xenograft growing for 175 days after implantation of CTCs-enriched fraction in the subrenal capsule. Scale bar 1 cm. b Subcutaneous growth of established xenograft was monitored in three consecutive passages. Data from two representative mice per passage are presented. c Immunohistochemical comparison of established CDX and primary tumour from the same patient. H-E hematoxylin-eosin, CK 8 cytokeratin 8, E-cad E-cadherin, Vim vimentin, ER oestrogen receptor, HER2 human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, PR progesterone receptor. Scale bar 100 µm. Enlarged cut-outs are on the right side of the image of each particular marker. d Summary of results from 3 independent repetitions of the metastatic assay in vivo. N = 8 mice per mammary fat pad (mfp), tail vein (iv), and caudal artery (ca) injection, n = 4 per intracardiac (ic) injection. Results are presented as the number of animals with detectable human cancer cells/number of all animals injected. See Supplementary Fig. S2 for the full gating strategy and quantification of % of CD298⁺ cells in particular organs, and Supplementary Table S2 for detailed information about the number of cells analysed/detected.