Cell cycling throttles epithelial--mesenchymal transition

In TGF-{beta}-stimulated MCF10A cells, G1 phase shows consistently higher EMT gene expression and RNA velocities than cycling (S/G2/M), with strongest effects in G1 EMT intermediate states.

• Why it matters: Cell cycle phase is often regressed out of single-cell EMT analyses, potentially removing EMT-linked biology and obscuring how metastasis-relevant transitions vary across the cell cycle.
• What they did: The authors compared EMT between G1 and cycling cells in two independent scRNA-seq datasets of TGF-{beta}-stimulated MCF10A across varying dose and timepoint, then built an EMT gene regulatory model coupled to a cell-cycle module.
• The result: EMT and cell cycle programs inversely correlate, with anticorrelation extending to RNA velocity and strengthening with TGF-{beta} dose; a 77-gene G1-specific EMT signature and simulations support predictions that cycle-selective chemotherapy enriches for the G1 intermediate state.

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