CLEC10A can serve as a potential therapeutic target and its level correlates with immune infiltration in breast cancer

Shasha Tang; Yi Zhang; Xiaoyan Lin; Hui Wang; Liyun Yong; Hongyi Zhang; Fengfeng Cai

doi:10.3892/ol.2022.13405

CLEC10A can serve as a potential therapeutic target and its level correlates with immune infiltration in breast cancer

Oncol Lett. 2022 Jun 28;24(2):285. doi: 10.3892/ol.2022.13405. eCollection 2022 Aug.

Authors

Shasha Tang¹, Yi Zhang¹, Xiaoyan Lin¹, Hui Wang², Liyun Yong¹, Hongyi Zhang¹, Fengfeng Cai¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Breast Surgery, Yangpu Hospital, School of Medicine, Tongji University, Shanghai 200090, P.R. China.
² Laboratory of Tumor Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Shanghai University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Shanghai 201318, P.R. China.

Abstract

Breast cancer (BC) is one of the most common malignant cancers in females worldwide and greatly threatens women's health. The C-type lectin domain family 10 member A (CLEC10A) is a member of the C-type lectin receptor family that has been previously reported to promote the antitumor activity of immune cells. In the present study, the potential prognostic value of CLEC10A expression in BC was assessed using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas online database. Differences in the mRNA expression levels of CLEC10A between BC and normal tissues were then analyzed using the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER) platform and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Cancer data analysis portal. Reverse transcription-quantitative PCR was performed to validate the results of this analysis. The Kaplan-Meier plotter database was used to evaluate the association between the mRNA expression levels of CLEC10A and clinical prognosis of BC. Based on the association between the mRNA expression levels of CLEC10A and the tumor immune microenvironment, the TIMER platform and the Tumor and Immune System Interaction Database website were utilized to assess the correlation between CLEC10A expression and the degree of tumor immune cell infiltration. The present study revealed that CLEC10A expression was significantly lower in BC tissues compared with that in normal tissues, which was in turn associated with poorer clinical outcomes. This suggested that lower CLEC10A expression levels were associated with unfavorable prognosis in BC. In addition, the expression level of CLEC10A was found to be positively associated with the level of different tumor-infiltrating immune cells in BC, including CD8 T cells, B cells, macrophages and NK cells which, was in turn closely correlated with some gene markers such as CD19, CD8A, KIR2DS4 and PTGS2. These results suggest that the relationship between lower CLEC10A expression level and poor prognosis in BC may be due to the role of CLEC10A in the tumor immune microenvironment. In conclusion, CLEC10A may be a potential biomarker that can be used to efficiently predict prognosis in patients with BC.

Keywords: C-type lectin domain family 10 member A; biomarkers; breast cancer; immune cell; overall survival; prognosis.

Grants and funding

The present study was supported by the Shanghai Yangpu District Health and Family Planning Commission Fund for Hao Yi Shi Training Project (grant no. 202056, 2020-2023), the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai (grant no. 18ZR1436000) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 81802961).