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Review
. 2021 Nov 15:11:766248.
doi: 10.3389/fonc.2021.766248. eCollection 2021.

Research Progress on the Role of Regulatory T Cell in Tumor Microenvironment in the Treatment of Breast Cancer

Jianyu Liu  1 , Xueying Wang  1 , Yuhan Deng  1 , Xin Yu  1 , Hongbin Wang  1 , Zhigao Li  1
Affiliations
Review

Research Progress on the Role of Regulatory T Cell in Tumor Microenvironment in the Treatment of Breast Cancer

Jianyu Liu et al. Front Oncol. .

Abstract

The tumor microenvironment (TME) is a complex ecosystem comprised of cancer cells, stromal cells, and immune cells. Analysis of the composition of TME is essential to assess the prognosis of patients with breast cancer (BC) and the efficacy of different regimes. Treg plays a crucial role in the microenvironment of breast cancer subtypes, and its function contributes to the development and progression of BC by suppressing anti-tumor immunity directly or indirectly through multiple mechanisms. In addition, conventional treatments, such as anthracycline-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and neo-therapies, such as immune-checkpoint blockades, have a significant impact on the absence of Tregs in BC TME, thus gaining additional anti-tumor effect to some extent. Strikingly, Treg in BC TME revealed the predicted efficacy of some therapeutic strategies. All these results suggest that we can manipulate the abundance of Treg to achieve the ultimate effect of both conventional and novel treatments. In this review, we discuss new insights into the characteristics of Treg in BC TME, the impact of different regiments on Treg, and the possibilities of Treg as a predictive marker of efficacy for certain treatments.

Keywords: breast cancer; immunotherapy; neoadjuvant treatment; regulatory T cell; tumor microenvironment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Graphic representation of the development of Tregs. The location of origin of Tregs consisted of the thymus and secondary lymphoid tissue. The process involved in the thymus includes the selection of high-affinity CD25+ Treg cells and the expression of FOXP3 and other essential receptors expressed on the membrane through a complex signal transduction. The other process taking place in the secondary lymphoid tissue is attributed to the binding of PD-1 and PD-L1 and the cytokine TGF-β, but the inner mechanism remains unclear.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Detailed process of lymphocyte infiltration in a breast cancer microenvironment.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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