Fig. 5

Postconfluent cultures are enriched for c-Kit+ cells. A Flow cytometry report showing the c-Kit+ subpopulation. B Relative gene expression for characteristic genes of luminal cells, myoepithelial cells, and the extracellular matrix genes for LEp (CD133+) and c-Kit+ subpopulations of HMECs from five specimens. Genes of interest with RNA reads fewer than 2 CPM across all specimens are blocked out in gray. C Lollipop plot showing the genes with the greatest differential expression index between LEps and c-Kit+ cells. The differential expression index, as described in the text, is defined in Additional file 8: Fig. S2B. n = 6 distinct HMEC specimens were evaluated for c-Kit analysis