AUTHOR=Jiang Xingyu , Qian Zhengtao , Chen Yu , Zhou Tao , Zhao Can , Yin Yongxiang 

TITLE=CMTM7 recognizes an immune-hot tumor microenvironment and predicts therapeutic response of immunotherapy in breast cancer well

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2022.1051269

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2022.1051269

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=Breast cancer (BRCA) is a complex disease leading the major mortalities and unsatisfactory clinical outcomes among women worldwide. CKLF-like MARVEL transmembrane domain-containing 7 (CMTM7) is a potential tumor suppressor and regulator of PD-L1, which has been found as a functional signature in considerable oncogenesis, progression, and therapeutic resistance via deleting and down-regulation. In this research, triple-negative breast cancer (BRCA), a molecular subtype having the lower response to endocrinotherapy but the higher response to chemotherapy and immunotherapy, showed higher transcriptional levels of CMTM7. Moreover, CMTM7 positively correlated with immunomodulators, tumor-infiltration immune cells (TIICs), and immune checkpoints in many independent datasets. Furthermore, in an immunotherapy cohort of BRCA, patients with high CMTM7 expression were more sensitive to immunotherapy, and the therapeutic predictive value of CMTM7 is higher than PD-1 and PD-L1. To sum up, CMTM7 correlated with an inflamed tumor microenvironment and identifies immune-hot tumors, which can be a novel biomarker for the recognition of immunological characteristics and immunotherapeutic response in BRCA.