Quantitative assessment of the immune microenvironment in African American Triple Negative Breast Cancer: a case–control study

Abstract

Purpose Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is more common in African American (AA) than Non-AA (NAA) population. We hypothesize that tumor microenvironment (TME) contributes to this disparity. Here, we use multiplex quantitative immunofluorescence to characterize the expression of immunologic biomarkers in the TME in both populations. Patients and methods TNBC tumor resection specimen tissues from a 100-patient case: control cohort including 49 AA and 51 NAA were collected. TME markers including CD45, CD14, CD68, CD206, CD4, CD8, CD20, CD3, Ki67, GzB, Thy1, FAP, aSMA, CD34, Col4, VWF and PD-L1 we quantitatively assessed in every field of view. Mean expression levels were compared between cases and controls. Results Although no significant differences were detected in individual lymphoid and myeloid markers, we found that infiltration with CD45+ immune cells (p = 0.0102) was higher in TNBC in AA population. AA TNBC tumors also had significantly higher level of lymphocytic infiltration defined as CD45+ CD14− cells (p = 0.0081). CD3+ T-cells in AA tumors expressed significantly higher levels of Ki67 (0.0066) compared to NAAs, indicating that a higher percentage of AA tumors contained activated T-cells. All other biomarkers showed no significant differences between the AA and NAA group. Conclusions While the TME in TNBC is rich in immune cells in both racial groups, there is a numerical increase in lymphoid infiltration in AA compared to NAA TNBC. Significantly, higher activated T cells seen in AA patients raises the possibility that there may be a subset of AA patients with improved response to immunotherapy.

Survival Disparities in US Black Compared to White Women with Hormone Receptor Positive-HER2 Negative Breast Cancer

“…For example, the tumor microenvironment performs a critical role in tumorigenesis and differences in the microenvironment from Black compared to White women, such as higher vessel density, increased macrophage recruitment and cytokine levels, may lead to increased growth, angiogenesis, metastasis and therapy resistance [75]. While a number of studies have evaluated molecular differences in the tumor microenvironment of Black compared to White women with all subtypes of breast cancer or triple negative breast cancer [76][77][78], to our knowledge, no studies have investigated the role of the tumor microenvironment in disparate survival of women with HR+/HER2-breast cancer. In conjunction, a number of lifestyle behaviors and environmental exposures, such as higher BMI and exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, have been detected in Black women [79].…”

Polyphenolic Boronates Inhibit Tumor Cell Proliferation: Potential Mitigators of Oxidants in the Tumor Microenvironment

“…A critical requirement for enhanced therapeutic success is selective localization of boron-containing compounds in tumor tissues. Mitochondria-tar- The existence of racial and ethnic disparities has been identified in the breast cancer microenvironment [72][73][74]. The TME of Black cancer patients with breast cancer exhibits in-creased level pro-tumorigenic factors (e.g., macrophages, T regs , exhausted T cells) compared with white counterparts [67,68,72,75].…”