Researchers at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center have completed the most extensive mapping of healthy breast cells to date. These findings offer an important tool for researchers at IU and beyond to understand how breast cancer develops and the differences in breast tissue among genetic ancestries. Published this month in , researchers developed a comprehensive atlas of breast tissue —including details on how the genome is organized in each cell type and the effects of this genome organization on how RNA is made in each cell type to drive their function in various parts of the breast—using healthy breast tissue from women of diverse ancestry.
"Breast cancer shows variability in the outcome based on your genetic ancestry," said Harikrishna Nakshatri, Ph.D., senior author of the study.
"While socio-economics are certainly a contributing factor, we believe biology and ancestry also play a role. This study will help us to address that biological, ancestral aspect." Nakshatri is the Marian J.
Morrison Professor of Breast Cancer Research at IU School of Medicine and a researcher of the Vera Bradley Foundation Center for Breast Cancer Research at the IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center. Nakshatri's lab sequenced 88,000 cell nuclei from 92 women who donated healthy breast tissue to the Komen Tissue Bank at the IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center. The donors included people of African, European, Indigenous American, Hispanic, East Asian, So.