Expression and clinical significance of Tim-3 and PD-1 on CD4+ T lymphocytes in three-negative breast cancer patients
Xu Benling
Yuan Peng
Chen Guangyu
Wang Zhenlei
Yuan Long
Abstract：Objective To detect the expression of Tim-3 and PD-1 on CD4+ T lymphocytes in three-negative breast cancer (BC) patients and investigate their potential relationship with the progression of BC.Methods Fifty-two patients with three-negative BC in Department of Breast Surgery, the Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University from January of 2013 to January of 2014 were enrolled.All the Peripheral blood and 7 cases of tumor and paraneoplastic tissues from surgically treated BC patients were obtained.The expression of Tim-3 and PD-1 on CD4+ T lymphocytes were analyzed by flow cytometry.Results The frequencies of Tim-3+ cells, PD-1+ cells and Tim-3+ PD-1+ cells among CD4+ cells were significantly higher in BC patients than those in the 22 healthy donors (Tim-3: 2.74% vs 1.7%, P=0.026 4;PD-1: 17.15% vs 11.8%, P=0.000 6;Tim-3+ PD-1+: 2.23% vs 1.13%, P=0.006 6).Significant difference was observed for the Tim-3+ PD-1+ CD4+ percentage in stage Ⅲ/Ⅳ patients compared to the patients with stage Ⅰ/Ⅱ (3.23% vs 1.66%, P=0.021 6) and healthy donors.Compared with the matched paraneoplastic tissue and their counterparts in blood, the percentage of Tim-3+ cells, PD-1+ cells and Tim-3+ PD-1+ cells in tumor-infiltrating CD4+ T cells were significantly increased in the tumor tissues.Conclusion The frequencies of Tim-3+ cells among CD4+ cells were significantly increased in BC patients, indicating that Tim-3+ PD-1+ CD4+ T cells may be one of the mechanisms related to immune escape of tumor cells, acceleration of the development of BC.
Keywords：Breast cancerCD4+ T-lymphocytesT cell exhaustTim-3PD-1
Publication Date：2017-01-01
Online Publishing Date：2026-09-12(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：4( 1173-1176 )