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Research Paper|Volume 11, Issue 23|pp 10883—10901

Clinical and transcriptional signatures of human CD204 reveal an applicable marker for the protumor phenotype of tumor-associated macrophages in breast cancer

Yunjie He1, Siying Zhou2, Fei Deng1, Shujie Zhao3, Wenquan Chen1, Dandan Wang1, Xiu Chen1, Juncheng Hou1, Jian Zhang1, Wei Zhang1, Li Ding1, Jinhai Tang1, Zuomin Zhou4
  • 1Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, P.R. China
  • 2The First Clinical Medical College, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, P.R. China
  • 3Department of Orthopedic, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210019, P.R. China
  • 4State Key Laboratory of Reproductive Medicine, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing 210029, P.R. China
* Equal contribution
Received: May 8, 2019Accepted: November 17, 2019Published: December 4, 2019
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.102490

Copyright © 2019 He et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Background: Tumor-associated macrophages in human breast cancer are poorly understood. Specific tumor-associated macrophage-related molecular mechanisms among different intrinsic molecular subtypes remain unclear. Here, we have identified and explored the roles of the tumor-associated macrophages novel marker: CD204 in different subtypes of breast cancer.

Results: CD204 was upregulated in four subtypes of breast cancer, and this was associated with poor survival outcomes. CD204 could promote tumor cell proliferation, migration, and invasion and was involved in immune system-related pathways among all subtypes. Special pathways in each subtype were also found. High CD204 mRNA expressions were associated with high proportions of protumor immune cell populations, and most immunoinhibitors positive correlated with CD204 expression in all subtypes.

Conclusions: These findings contribute to a better understanding and managing the protumor phenotype of tumor-associated macrophages in different subtypes of breast cancer.

Methods: The expression of CD204 and its clinical outcome were analyzed. The roles of CD204 in the regulation of tumor cell proliferation, migration, and invasion were studied. Potential pathways influenced by CD204 were displayed. Immune cell infiltration in different CD204 mRNA expression status and correlations between CD204 and immunoinhibitors were also analyzed.