Spatial topology of organelle is a new breast cancer cell classifier

Abstract

Genomics and proteomics have been central to identify tumor cell populations, but more accurate approaches to classify cell subtypes are still lacking. We propose a new methodology to accurately classify cancer cells based on their organelle spatial topology. Herein, we developed an organelle topology-based cell classification pipeline (OTCCP), which integrates artificial intelligence (AI) and imaging quantification to analyze organelle spatial distribution and inter-organelle topology. OTCCP was used to classify a panel of human breast cancer cells, grown as 2D monolayer or 3D tumor spheroids using early endosomes, mitochondria, and their inter-organelle contacts. Organelle topology allows for a highly precise differentiation between cell lines of different subtypes and aggressiveness. These findings lay the groundwork for using organelle topological profiling as a fast and efficient method for phenotyping breast cancer function as well as a discovery tool to advance our understanding of cancer cell biology at the subcellular level.