Establishing a pipeline for the isolation and expansion of estrogen receptor positive (ER+) cells from healthy volunteers followed by their first characterisation using single-cell transcriptomics

When studying cancer, it is not possible to fully understand what has changed to cause the disease without understanding the healthy tissue it arises from. For breast cancer research, studying healthy cells has been a key challenge. In 75% of cases, tumours are classified as oestrogen receptor positive, but previous studies have been hindered by a lack of methods for growing healthy oestrogen receptor positive cells in the lab. We will build on a recent study that presents a solution to this challenge by providing a protocol for the purification of oestrogen receptor positive cells from volunteers. We will then pioneer the use of single-cell sequencing technologies to characterise these understudied cells from healthy breast tissue. The data we generate will provide new insight into how healthy cells respond to the hormone oestrogen and how this relates to the established role of the oestrogen receptor in cancer.