Li Wenge, Yu Xin, Xia Yue, Li Juanjuan
Department of Breast and Thyroid Surgery, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, P. R. China.
Department of urology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, P. R. China.
J Cancer. 2025 Jul 28;16(11):3513-3524. doi: 10.7150/jca.118933. eCollection 2025.
Breast cancer remains a major global health burden, necessitating improved prognostic markers and therapeutic strategies. This study investigates the role of class II major histocompatibility complex transactivator (CIITA), a master regulator of major histocompatibility complex class II(MHC-II) gene expression, in breast cancer. Although CIITA is well recognized for its role in antigen presentation in immune cells, its function in tumor immunity and prognosis remains underexplored. Through integrative bioinformatics analyses using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and other datasets, we demonstrate that high CIITA expression is associated with favorable clinical outcomes and enhanced immune activation in breast cancer. CIITA levels correlate with increased infiltration of antitumor immune cells, elevated expression of immune checkpoint genes, and enrichment of immune-related pathways. Immunohistochemical staining of breast cancer tissues further confirms CIITA protein expression patterns. Moreover, functional enrichment analyses suggest that CIITA may influence tumor-immune interactions by modulating immune response pathways. A prognostic nomogram incorporating CIITA expression shows robust predictive value for overall survival, offering potential clinical utility. These findings highlight CIITA as a promising prognostic biomarker and immunomodulatory target in breast cancer, shedding light on its role in shaping the tumor immune microenvironment.
乳腺癌仍然是一项重大的全球健康负担,因此需要改进预后标志物和治疗策略。本研究调查了II类主要组织相容性复合体反式激活因子(CIITA),即主要组织相容性复合体II类(MHC-II)基因表达的主要调节因子,在乳腺癌中的作用。尽管CIITA因其在免疫细胞抗原呈递中的作用而广为人知,但其在肿瘤免疫和预后方面的功能仍未得到充分探索。通过使用癌症基因组图谱(TCGA)和其他数据集进行综合生物信息学分析,我们证明CIITA高表达与乳腺癌良好的临床结果和增强的免疫激活相关。CIITA水平与抗肿瘤免疫细胞浸润增加、免疫检查点基因表达升高以及免疫相关通路富集相关。乳腺癌组织的免疫组化染色进一步证实了CIITA蛋白表达模式。此外,功能富集分析表明,CIITA可能通过调节免疫反应途径影响肿瘤-免疫相互作用。纳入CIITA表达的预后列线图对总生存期显示出强大的预测价值,具有潜在的临床应用价值。这些发现突出了CIITA作为乳腺癌中有前景的预后生物标志物和免疫调节靶点,揭示了其在塑造肿瘤免疫微环境中的作用。