AP-1 regulates heterogeneous cellular dormancy in TNBC

Slow-cycling cells (SCCs) are a heterogeneous subpopulation of tumor cells. They pre-exist in tumor tissues and evade killing by chemotherapeutics that target mitosis due to their dormant nature. We here utilized varieties of fluorescent dyes or proteins (Claret, H2BeGFP, and Violet) retaining method to label and isolate SCCs, and RNA-seq was performed to understand the gene expression characteristics of subpopulations of SCCs. Overall design: Here we reported that SCCs subgroups share similar gene expression profiles. Up-regulations of AP-1 subunits regulate triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) dormancy by up-regulating the expression of CDKN1A and GADD45 family as transcription factors.