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Despite many studies exploring the presence of <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic> cells in human tissues, little is known about its expression profile in either human mammary tissue or pathological lesions. In this study we aim to investigate <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic> expression in normal, benign, and malignant lesions of the human breast using RNA in situ hybridization. <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic> expression has not been observed in normal lactiferous ducts and terminal duct lobular units, whereas <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic>-positive cells have been specifically observed in the basal myoepithelium of ducts in the regenerative tissues, ductal carcinoma in situ, and in ducts surrounded by invasive cancer cells. These findings suggest <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic> marks facultative stem cells that are involved in post injury regeneration instead of homeostatic stem cells. <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic> positivity was found in 3% (9 of 278 cases) of invasive breast cancers (BC), and it showed positive associations with higher histologic grades (<jats:italic>P<\/jats:italic>\u2009=\u20090.001) and T stages (<jats:italic>P<\/jats:italic>\u2009&lt;\u20090.001), while having negative correlations with estrogen receptor (<jats:italic>P<\/jats:italic>\u2009&lt;\u20090.001) and progesterone receptor (<jats:italic>P<\/jats:italic>\u2009&lt;\u20090.001) expression. Remarkably, all <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic>-positive BC, except one, belong to triple-negative BC (TNBC), representing 24% (9 of 38 cases) of all of them. <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic> histoscores have no correlations with EGFR, CK5\/6, Ki-67, or P53 expression. Additionally, no \u03b2-catenin nuclear localization was observed in <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic>-positive BC, indicating that canonical Wnt pathway activation is less likely involved in <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic> expression in BC. Our results demonstrate that <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic> expression is induced in regenerative conditions in the myoepithelium of human mammary ducts and that its expression is only observed in TNBC subtype among all invasive BC. Further studies regarding the functional and prognostic impact of <jats:italic>LGR5<\/jats:italic> in TNBC are warranted.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1038\/s41598-021-97351-y","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,7]],"date-time":"2021-09-07T10:03:12Z","timestamp":1631008992000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":12,"title":["Expression of LGR5 in mammary myoepithelial cells and in triple-negative breast cancers"],"prefix":"10.1038","volume":"11","author":[{"given":"Hyun Ju","family":"Lee","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jae Kyung","family":"Myung","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hye Sung","family":"Kim","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Dong Hui","family":"Lee","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hyun Su","family":"Go","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jae Hyuck","family":"Choi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hyun Min","family":"Koh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Su-Jae","family":"Lee","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Bogun","family":"Jang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,7]]},"reference":[{"key":"97351_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"4051","DOI":"10.1126\/scisignal.aaz4051","volume":"13","author":"S Park","year":"2020","unstructured":"Park, S. et al. 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