While, the proportion of CD44+/CD24- cells did not correlate with gene expression-based classifiers of breast cancer subtype, consistent with previous reports, there was a striking relationship between the proportion of CD44+/CD24- cells in the line and spindle-cell morphology (Figure 1c), [32,33] (Additional files 1, 2, 3 and 4). The gene discussed is CD44; the disease is breast carcinoma.