We recruited a cohort of 20 patients covering 4 major breast cancer subtypes (HER2, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 breast cancer; LA, luminal A breast cancer; LB, luminal B breast cancer; TNBC, triple-negative breast cancer) and designed a 14-channel IMC panel to simultaneously identify bacteria subtypes, breast cancer cell subtypes, and cellular functions (Fig. 5a, Supplementary Table 1). Here, ERBB2 is linked to breast cancer.