Germline polygenic risk scores are associated with immune gene expression signature and immune cell infiltration in breast cancer.

ABSTRACT: The tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) plays key roles in tumor progression and response to immunotherapy. Previous studies have identified individual germline variants associated with differences in TIME. Here, we hypothesize that common variants associated with breast cancer risk or cancer-related traits, represented by polygenic risk scores (PRSs), may jointly influence immune features in TIME. We derived 154 immune traits from bulk gene expression profiles of 764 breast tumors and 598 adjacent normal tissue samples from 825 individuals with breast cancer in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) and NHSII. Immunohistochemical staining of four immune cell markers were available for a subset of 205 individuals. Germline PRSs were calculated for 16 different traits including breast cancer, auto

SUBMITTER: Liu Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11480808 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature