- About
- Strategic Plan
- Structure
- Governance
- Scientific divisions
- ACRF Cancer Biology and Stem Cells
- ACRF Chemical Biology
- Advanced Technology and Biology
- Bioinformatics
- Blood Cells and Blood Cancer
- Clinical Translation
- Epigenetics and Development
- Immunology
- Infectious Diseases and Immune Defence
- Inflammation
- Personalised Oncology
- Population Health and Immunity
- Structural Biology
- Ubiquitin Signalling
- Laboratory operations
- Funding
- Annual reports
- Human research ethics
- Scientific integrity
- Institute life
- Career opportunities
- Business Development
- Collaborators
- Suppliers
- Publications repository
- Awards
- Discoveries
- Centenary 2015
- History
- Contact us
- Research
- Diseases
- Cancer
- Development and ageing
- Immune health and infection
- Research fields
- Research technologies
- Research centres
- People
- Alistair Brown
- Anne-Laure Puaux
- Assoc Prof Joanna Groom
- Associate Profesor Ian Majewski
- Associate Professor Aaron Jex
- Associate Professor Alyssa Barry
- Associate Professor Andrew Webb
- Associate Professor Chris Tonkin
- Associate Professor Daniel Gray
- Associate Professor Diana Hansen
- Associate Professor Edwin Hawkins
- Associate Professor Ethan Goddard-Borger
- Associate Professor Gemma Kelly
- Associate Professor Grant Dewson
- Associate Professor Isabelle Lucet
- Associate Professor James Vince
- Associate Professor Jason Tye-Din
- Associate Professor Jeanne Tie
- Associate Professor Jeff Babon
- Associate Professor Joan Heath
- Associate Professor John Wentworth
- Associate Professor Justin Boddey
- Associate Professor Kate Sutherland
- Associate Professor Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat
- Associate Professor Matthew Ritchie
- Associate Professor Melissa Call
- Associate Professor Melissa Davis
- Associate Professor Misty Jenkins
- Associate Professor Nawaf Yassi
- Associate Professor Oliver Sieber
- Associate Professor Peter Czabotar
- Associate Professor Rachel Wong
- Associate Professor Rhys Allan
- Associate Professor Rosie Watson
- Associate Professor Ruth Kluck
- Associate Professor Sandra Nicholson
- Associate Professor Seth Masters
- Associate Professor Sumitra Ananda
- Associate Professor Tim Thomas
- Associate Professor Tracy Putoczki
- Chela Niall
- Deborah Carr
- Dr Alisa Glukhova
- Dr Anna Coussens
- Dr Ashley Ng
- Dr Belinda Phipson
- Dr Ben Tran
- Dr Bernhard Lechtenberg
- Dr Brad Sleebs
- Dr Drew Berry
- Dr Gwo Yaw Ho
- Dr Hamish King
- Dr Hui-Li Wong
- Dr Jacqui Gulbis
- Dr Kelly Rogers
- Dr Lucy Gately
- Dr Margaret Lee
- Dr Mary Ann Anderson
- Dr Maryam Rashidi
- Dr Matthew Call
- Dr Nadia Davidson
- Dr Philippe Bouillet
- Dr Rebecca Feltham
- Dr Rory Bowden
- Dr Samir Taoudi
- Dr Shabih Shakeel
- Dr Shalin Naik
- Dr Sheau Wen Lok
- Dr Stephin Vervoort
- Dr Yunshun Chen
- Guillaume Lessene
- Helene Martin
- Joh Kirby
- Kaye Wycherley
- Keely Bumsted O'Brien
- Mr Mark Eaton
- Mr Simon Monard
- Mr Steve Droste
- Ms Carolyn MacDonald
- Professor Alan Cowman
- Professor Andreas Strasser
- Professor Andrew Lew
- Professor Andrew Roberts
- Professor Anne Voss
- Professor Clare Scott
- Professor David Huang
- Professor David Komander
- Professor David Vaux
- Professor Doug Hilton
- Professor Geoff Lindeman
- Professor Gordon Smyth
- Professor Ian Wicks
- Professor Ivo Mueller
- Professor James McCarthy
- Professor James Murphy
- Professor Jane Visvader
- Professor Jerry Adams
- Professor John Silke
- Professor Ken Shortman
- Professor Leanne Robinson
- Professor Leonard C Harrison
- Professor Lynn Corcoran
- Professor Marc Pellegrini
- Professor Marco Herold
- Professor Marnie Blewitt
- Professor Melanie Bahlo
- Professor Mike Lawrence
- Professor Nicos Nicola
- Professor Peter Colman
- Professor Peter Gibbs
- Professor Phil Hodgkin
- Professor Sant-Rayn Pasricha
- Professor Stephen Nutt
- Professor Suzanne Cory
- Professor Terry Speed
- Professor Tony Papenfuss
- Professor Wai-Hong Tham
- Professor Warren Alexander
- Diseases
- Education
- PhD
- Honours
- Masters
- Clinician-scientist training
- Undergraduate
- Student research projects
- A new regulator of 'stemness' to create dendritic cell factories for immunotherapy
- Advanced imaging interrogation of pathogen induced NETosis
- Cancer driver deserts
- Cryo-electron microscopy of Wnt signalling complexes
- Deciphering the heterogeneity of breast cancer at the epigenetic and genetic levels
- Developing drugs to block malaria transmission
- Developing new computational tools for CRISPR genomics to advance cancer research
- Developing novel antibody-based methods for regulating apoptotic cell death
- Discovering novel paradigms to cure viral and bacterial infections
- Discovery and targeting of novel regulators of transcription
- Dissecting host cell invasion by the diarrhoeal pathogen Cryptosporidium
- Do membrane forces govern assembly of the deadly apoptotic pore?
- Doublecortin-like kinases, drug targets in cancer and neurological disorders
- E3 ubiquitin ligases in neurodegeneration, autoinflammation and cancer
- Engineering improved CAR-T cell therapies
- Epigenetic biomarkers of tuberculosis infection
- Exploiting cell death pathways in regulatory T cells for cancer immunotherapy
- Finding treatments for chromatin disorders of intellectual disability
- Functional epigenomics in human B cells
- Genomic rearrangement detection with third generation sequencing technology
- How does DNA damage shape disease susceptibility over a lifetime?
- How does DNA hypermutation shape the development of solid tumours?
- How platelets prevent neonatal stroke
- Human lung protective immunity to tuberculosis
- Interaction with Toxoplasma parasites and the brain
- Interactions between tumour cells and their microenvironment in non-small cell lung cancer
- Investigating the role of dysregulated Tom40 in neurodegeneration
- Investigating the role of mutant p53 in cancer
- Lupus: proteasome inhibitors and inflammation
- Machine learning methods for somatic genome rearrangement detection
- Malaria: going bananas for sex
- Measurements of malaria parasite and erythrocyte membrane interactions using cutting-edge microscopy
- Measuring susceptibility of cancer cells to BH3-mimetics
- Minimising rheumatic adverse events of checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapy
- Mutational signatures of structural variation
- Naturally acquired immune response to malaria parasites
- Predicting the effect of non-coding structural variants in cancer
- Revealing the epigenetic origins of immune disease
- Reversing antimalarial resistance in human malaria parasites
- Structural and functional analysis of DNA repair complexes
- Targeting human infective coronaviruses using alpaca antibodies
- Towards targeting altered glial biology in high-grade brain cancers
- Uncovering the real impact of persistent malaria infections
- Understanding Plasmodium falciparum invasion of red blood cells
- Understanding how malaria parasites sabotage acquisition of immunity
- Understanding malaria infection dynamics
- Understanding the mechanism of type I cytokine receptor activation
- Unveiling the heterogeneity of small cell lung cancer
- Using alpaca antibodies to understand malaria invasion and transmission
- Using combination immunotherapy to tackle heterogeneous brain tumours
- Using intravital microscopy for immunotherapy against brain tumours
- Using nanobodies to cross the blood brain barrier for drug delivery
- Using structural biology to understand programmed cell death
- School resources
- Frequently asked questions
- Student profiles
- Abebe Fola
- Andrew Baldi
- Anna Gabrielyan
- Bridget Dorizzi
- Casey Ah-Cann
- Catia Pierotti
- Emma Nolan
- Huon Wong
- Jing Deng
- Joy Liu
- Kaiseal Sarson-Lawrence
- Komal Patel
- Lilly Backshell
- Megan Kent
- Naomi Jones
- Rebecca Delconte
- Roberto Bonelli
- Rune Larsen
- Runyu Mao
- Sarah Garner
- Simona Seizova
- Wayne Cawthorne
- Wil Lehmann
- Miles Horton
- Alexandra Gurzau
- Student achievements
- Student association
- Learning Hub
- News
- Donate
- Online donation
- Ways to support
- Support outcomes
- Supporter stories
- Rotarians against breast cancer
- A partnership to improve treatments for cancer patients
- 20 years of cancer research support from the Helpman family
- A generous gift from a cancer survivor
- A gift to support excellence in Australian medical research
- An enduring friendship
- Anonymous donor helps bridge the 'valley of death'
- Renewed support for HIV eradication project
- Searching for solutions to muscular dystrophy
- Supporting research into better treatments for colon cancer
- Taking a single cell focus with the DROP-seq
- WEHI.TV
New cellular atlas maps out healthy and cancerous breast tissue
14 May 2021
WEHI researchers have documented the diversity of cells in the human breast, explaining the relationship between healthy breast cells and breast cancer cells.
documented in a new 'RNA atlas'.
The research, which relied on expertise spanning from breast cancer biology through to bioinformatics, measured gene expression in single cells taken from healthy women and cancerous breast tissue, including tissue carrying a faulty BRCA1 gene. This enabled the researchers to create an ‘RNA atlas’ that details the different cells found in these tissues.
The atlas, which was described in EMBO Journal, will enable researchers to better understand the different cell types that constitute breast tissue and how these change during the development of cancer.
The research was undertaken by a team including Dr Bhupinder Pal, Dr Yunshun Chen and Dr François Vaillant, and led by Professor Jane Visvader, Professor Gordon Smyth and Professor Geoff Lindeman.
At a glance
- A multidisciplinary team used single-cell transcriptomics to generate an RNA atlas that documents gene expression in different cells in healthy, pre-cancerous and cancerous human breast tissue.
- The atlas reveals the changes that occur within the breast during key events, including cancer development and menopause.
- The atlas is freely available to researchers around the world and is anticipated to be an important resource for breast cancer research.
Understanding single cells
Yunshun Chen, Professor Gordon Smyth, Professor
Jane Visvader and Dr Bhupinder Pal.
The human breast is a complex tissue, comprising a wide range of cells including cells specialised for milk production and release, as well as fat cells and immune cells, Professor Visvader said.
“Different types of breast cancer arise from distinct precursor cells. However, breast cancer development can be impacted by other cells within the breast,” she said. “This atlas provides a high-resolution view into the various cell types that make up breast tissue in different states and a blueprint for studying changes that lead to breast cancer.”
Dr Pal, who is now a laboratory head at the Olivia Newton John Cancer Research Institute, said ‘single-cell’ technologies enabled the research team to isolate more than 340,000 individual cells from breast tissues donated by women and men and to measure the expression of different genes in these cells.
“Our studies included healthy, pre-cancerous and cancerous tissue, enabling us to study the differences between these tissues,” he said.
A diverse and changing landscape
The research revealed a wide variety of cell types are present in the human breast, Dr Chen said.
“Complex bioinformatic analysis was crucial for documenting the complex cellular landscape. For example, we found that the composition of a particular subset of cells in the breast was altered by menopause – a period of significant hormonal change within the body,” he said.
The research also revealed many changes that occur within breast cancers, said Dr Vaillant.
“All the breast cancer types we studied displayed considerable diversity in their tumour cells, as well as in other cells found within the tumour. In particular, hormone-responsive cancers contained fewer dividing cells of a specific immune type, which could explain why many of these tumours are less responsive to anti-cancer immunotherapies.”
A multidisciplinary effort
Single-cell RNA sequencing is a new technology that has revolutionised how researchers can study complex tissues such as the breast said Professor Smyth, joint head of WEHI’s Bioinformatics division.
“Bioinformatics was critical for obtaining a global view of the diverse populations of cells within the different breast tissues we studied,” he said. “Computational methods enabled the team to detect patterns and differences in gene expression in the different cells within the breast at unprecedented resolution.”
Professor Visvader said the RNA atlas was the most comprehensive to-date for the human breast, and provided a framework for understanding the different cell types it can contain.
“This will be an invaluable resource for breast cancer researchers around the world. Our research also has important implications for not only understanding how breast cancers arise but also how cells in the surrounding environment contribute to their development, spread and response to treatment.”
The research team would like to acknowledge the important role that tissue donors, the Victorian Cancer Biobank and kConFab played in this study.
The research was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council, the Victorian Government, the National Breast Cancer Foundation, the Australian Cancer Research Foundation, Ian Potter Foundation, the Michael Heine Family Foundation, and the Qualtrough Cancer Research Fund.
WEHI authors
Dr Bhupinder Pal, Dr Yunshun Chen. Dr François Vaillant. Dr Bianca Capaldo. Ms Rachel Joyce, Ms Xiaoyu Song, Dr Vanessa Bryant, Ms Jocelyn Penington, Dr Leon Di Stefano, Ms Nina Tubau Ribera, Dr Stephen Wilcox, Professor Tony Papenfuss, Professor Geoff Lindeman, Professor Gordon Smyth, Professor Jane Visvader
Media inquiries
M: +61 475 751 811
E: communityrelations@wehi.edu.au
Super Content:
Want to be informed of our most exciting discoveries? Subscribe to our quarterly newsletter, Illuminate.
Professor Geoff Lindeman discusses his team's findings
Bioinformatics combines mathematics, statistics and computer science to solve complex biological problems.
Professor Jane Visvader has been awarded the 2014 Royal Society of Victoria Medal for Excellence in Scientific Research.
In 2006 our breast cancer research team had a eureka moment: the discovery of breast stem cells.
Explore the story on our Discovery Timeline.