Un blue print morfogenetico 3D per l'espansione metastatica nel cancro al seno.

The tissue-level processes underpinning metastatic outgrowth remain unclear. We combined single-cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, and AI-supported 3D imaging in human breast cancer with functional investigations in mice to uncover a 3D morphogenetic process essential for macrometastatic expansion. Macrometastases pervasively activate a metastatic trabecular morphogenesis (MTM) gene-expression program that redeploys developmental branching morphogenesis to build macrometastases as a 3D trabecular lattice of epithelial cords. MTMHIGH cells pre-exist in primary tumors destined to metastasize, whereas MTMLOW primaries are non-metastatic and display a compact, expansile growth archite