To select rows according to one ‘cell_type’ (e.g. ‘hesc’), use ==:
expr[expr$cell_type == "hesc", ]
To select rows according to two or more different ‘cell_type’, (e.g. either ‘hesc’ or ‘bj fibroblast’), use %in%:
expr[expr$cell_type %in% c("hesc", "bj fibroblast"), ]