Comprehensive genomic and immunophenotypic analysis of CD4 T cell infiltrating human triple-negative breast cancer

The aim of this study is to investigate the gene expression module of tumor-infiltrating CD4(+)T cells and its potential roles in modulating immune cell functions in triple-negative breast cancer. Differentially expressed genes were identified by comparison of the expression profile in CD4(+)T cells isolated from tumor tissues and peripheral blood of TNBC patients respectively. The differential expression analysis was conducted using R, and then the functional and pathway enrichment of the DEGs were analyzed using GSEA, followed by integrated regulatory network construction and genetic analysis of tumor-infiltrating immune cells based on a scientific deconvolution algorithm. As a result, abundant Treg and exhausted lymphocytes were detected, accompanied by largely decreased of effector/memory and cytotoxic T cells. Immune-related gene correlation analysis showed that the extent of follicular helper T cells gene expression signatures were inversely associated with those of CD4(+) naive T cells and CD4(+) memory resting T cells, but positively correlated with that of CD4(+) memory activated T cells. In addition, we found five core genes including IFNG, CTLA4, FAS, CXCR6, and JUN were significantly over expressed in CD4(+) TILs which may contribute to exhaustion of lymphocytes and participate in biological processes associated with regulation of chemotaxis. Study provides a comprehensive understanding of the roles of DEGs associated with the chemotactic and exhausted immunophenotypes of CD4(+) TILs that are a valuable resource from which future investigation may be carried out to better understand the mechanisms that promote TNBC progression. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00262-020-02807-1.