Identification of immune-related cells and genes in the breast invasive carcinoma microenvironment.

Xingfeng Chen,Kui Liao,Geli Liu,Fangzhou Song,Yue Li,Yujing Wang

doi:10.18632/aging.203879

Abstract

The clinical prognosis of breast cancer is closely related to its infiltrating immune status. The study sought to explore tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TILs) and immune-associated genes in the tumor microenvironment of breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA). The ESTIMATE algorithm was used to evaluate the microenvironment of breast cancer patients in TCGA database. The tumor's matrix score and immune score were obtained. The median was divided into two sub groups according to the median of the score, and the correlation between the score and prognosis was also discussed. Differentially expressed genes were screened from two subgroups with high and low score of breast cancer, and the differentially expressed genes were analyzed by GO and KEGG enrichment to explore their possible molecular functions, biological processes, cellular components and signal pathways involved in gene enrichment. It was found that there was a significant correlation between immune score and five-year survival rate, and the high score group had a better prognosis. Macrophage M1 and T cell CD8+ cells were positively related to 5-year overall survival in patients with breast invasive carcinoma. However, Macrophage M2 was negatively related to 5-year overall survival. We also observed that the low expression of four genes (CLEC3A, MCTS1, PDP1 and TCP1,) was related to favorable survival outcomes. High expression of FOXP3, CXCL9, CCR5, CXCR3, and CD37 was related to a high overall survival rate in BRCA. We identified a list of immune – related cells and genes that are useful for Prognostic evaluation and individualized treatment of BRCA.

Highlights

Breast cancer has become the most common and most prevalent tumor among women worldwide
Low immune score is associated with poor prognosis in Breast invasive carcinoma Immune score (IS) and stromal score (SS) in each 968 breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA) patients with complete clinical data were evaluated by ESTIMATE algorithm
Kaplan-Meier curves showed that high immune score correlated with improved overall survival (OS) for BRCA (Figure 2A), while higher stromal score showed no significant benefits in OS (Figure 2B)

Summary

Introduction

Breast cancer has become the most common and most prevalent tumor among women worldwide. The incidence rate of breast cancer is increasing, and the incidence rate of death is decreasing. Oncologists have conducted extensive and in-depth studies on the causes of breast cancer, the exact pathogenesis is unclear, and targeted prevention and treatment are difficult [1,2,3]. The presence of tumor specific immune responses in breast cancer has been suppressed, even in the early stages of cancer development. The design of therapeutic regimen against immunosuppressive microenvironment is a new strategy for breast cancer immunotherapy. The molecular mechanism of immune suppression in the microenvironment of breast cancer is still unclear, which limits the development of specific targeted therapy [7,8,9,10]

Methods

Results

Conclusion