RhoC is tightly associated with the BCSC marker ALDH1 in both xenograft and patient tumors.

<p>(<b>A</b>) Injecting mice with 5000 SUM149 scrambled cells–at which point both ALDH (+) and ALDH (−) cells form tumors–reveals that ALDH (−) tumors maintain reduced RhoC levels <i>in vivo</i>. This provides mechanistic evidence for the inability of ALDH (−) cells to metastasize (their inability to re-express RhoC), and speaks to the inability of ALDH (−) cells to reconstitute tumor heterogeneity and thus restore tumor RhoC expression through the expansion of RhoC-expressing ALDH (+) cells. (<b>B</b>) RhoC and ALDH1 expression are highly correlated in clinical breast cancer samples (Spearman’s rho = 0.868, p = 1.23×10⁻⁴², df = 134).