They identified two distinct subtypes, Active and Inactive, in the cancer-adjacent extra-tumoral microenvironment of breast tissues and demonstrated that TWIST1 was highly expressed along with other stromal associated genes, such as VIM, ADAMTS2, COL4A2, COL4A1, ITGA7 and ITGB1, in the Active subtype. This evidence concerns the gene ITGB1 and cancer.