Abstract
Background
Immune checkpoint inhibitors have been extensively utilized in treating breast cancer patients, leading to improved prognoses. For patients with negative checkpoint responses, there is a pressing need to identify alternative therapies to improve outcomes.
Materials and Methods
We used WGCNA in muti-place metastasis samples to find the lymph node metastasis related gene RFTN1. Consensus cluster show the different subtype with significant pathway changes and immune cells differences. We used CellChat estimated the different interactions of cells in single cell data. We used hdWGCNA and irGSEA to identify the changes between different RFTN1expression groups.
Results
We identified a gene, RFTN1, that is closely associated with lymph node metastasis, a critical early step in breast cancer spread. Immune infiltration analysis suggested that RFTN1 might be involved in regulating the immune system. Single-cell RNA sequencing revealed that samples with higher RFTN1 expression had increased proportions of CD8+ and CD4+ T cells, albeit the overall proportions were lower. These samples also showed different interactions between T cells and other cells, indicating a greater reception of chemotactic factors (CFs) in samples with higher RFTN1 expression. It appears that RFTN1 may facilitate T cell receptor binding to CFs, thereby enhancing T cell activation in the tumor microenvironment (TME).
Conclusion
This study proposes a novel approach to modulating T cells in the TME and offers an alternative to traditional immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies for treating BC. RFTN1 is related to the CFs receptor transportation in CD4+ T cells and CD8+ T cells, which may activate the anti-tumor immunity system in TME.