ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1538652
This article is part of the Research TopicCommunity Series in Innate Immunity: Platelets and their Interaction with other Cellular Elements in Host Defense and Disease Pathogenesis - Volume IIView all articles
CyTOF Reveals Platelet Subtype Changes Predicting the Efficacy of Combined Immunotherapy and Targeted Therapy in Liver Cancer
Provisionally accepted
- 1Beijing Youan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
- 2Hotan district infectious disease specialist hospital, hotan, China
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Immune checkpoint inhibitors combined with angiogenesis inhibitors are currently the first-line treatment for liver cancer, but some patients still experience poor efficacy. Platelets, an important component of blood, are closely related to liver cancer due to their impact on angiogenesis and the tumor immune microenvironment. In our study, we used CyTOF to detect surface proteins on platelets in the plasma of 23 patients before and after combined immunotherapy and targeted therapy for liver cancer, and analyzed the differences by grouping patients according to treatment efficacy. We found that the subpopulations of CD107a+ and CD62P+ platelets were reduced in liver cancer patients. In the group with progressive disease, the CD29+ platelet subpopulation increased compared to other groups, and this subpopulation decreased with tumor remission and increased with tumor progression. Our results demonstrate the heterogeneity of platelets in liver cancer patients, suggesting that the CD29+ platelet subpopulation may serve as a biomarker for predicting the efficacy of combined immunotherapy and targeted therapy in liver cancer. CD29+ platelets could also be a potential therapeutic target in future research.
Keywords: liver cancer, platelets, cyTOF, combined immunotherapy and targeted therapy, CD29+
Received: 09 Dec 2024; Accepted: 09 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lu, Wang, Liu, Wang, Aishan, Chen and Zheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Junfeng Lu, Beijing Youan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
Sujun Zheng, Beijing Youan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
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