Breast cancer stem cell activity driven by ME18D gene expression in the tumor microenvironment

Figure 2 Transcriptomic characterization of breast cancer stem cells. A and B: Principal component analysis plots showing distinct clustering of breast cancer stem cell samples (blue) and control samples (red) based on gene expression profiles. PC1 and PC2 explain 16.8% and 9.2% of variance, respectively; C: Differential gene expression analysis revealing 3837 significantly altered genes (1478 upregulated, 2359 downregulated) with corresponding heatmap showing expression patterns; D: Protein-protein interaction network of differentially expressed genes displaying functional associations and key regulatory nodes; E: Expression levels of stem cell-related genes in normal tissues vs breast cancer tissues, showing statistical significance (^cP < 0.001).