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6 slides generated from the cancer page, with a quiz from the open benchmark and speaker notes that cite the sources. Arrow keys move between slides; Print gives one slide per page.
Mesenchymal stem-like was one of the six original subtypes of triple-negative breast cancer, marked by stem-cell and low-proliferation genes. Five years later the same group showed the signal came from stromal cells mixed into the sample rather than the cancer cells, so the label describes a tumour environment rather than a tumour.
Lehmann 2011 separated a mesenchymal stem-like (MSL) cluster from the mesenchymal cluster by lower expression of proliferation genes and enrichment for genes of mesenchymal stem cells, angiogenesis and growth factor signalling; representative cell lines responded to the PI3K/mTOR inhibitor NVP-BEZ235 and to dasatinib (Lehmann 2011). Using histopathological quantification and laser-capture microdissection, the 2016 refinement showed that the MSL transcripts were contributed by tumour-associated stromal cells, as the immunomodulatory transcripts were by infiltrating lymphocytes, and collapsed the classification to four tumour-specific subtypes (Lehmann 2016). The page stays because the label persists in papers and reports; a tumour once called MSL would now be assigned to the mesenchymal or another intrinsic subtype, and its low proliferation and stromal richness match the claudin-low phenotype described by Fougner 2020.
A research classification by gene expression (Lehmann 2011, refined 2016), not a test the NHS runs; treatment follows the triple-negative rows on the parent page.
| Setting | Approach | Guideline |
|---|---|---|
| Any stage | As for triple-negative disease; the label has no treatment consequence. | not mapped |