In contrast, the CD90+ cluster 8 constituted an abundant subcluster isolated at comparable frequency from benign and malignant cores (Figures 6H,J–L,R-S) and exhibited a surface marker profile similar to CAF-S5, whose lack of contractile markers (SMA, TAGLN and TPM2) but expression of C3 and C7 and localization distal to tumour glands (Mathieson et al., 2024), were highly reminiscent of subcluster F3/iCAF (Figure 1G; Supplementary Figures S1F–G, 2). Here, TAGLN is linked to neoplasm.