@inproceedings{01JV1P27DVYAFMCD5S23Q9EB4D,
  abstract     = {{A limited subset of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients benefit from immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) such as anti-programmed death (PD)-ligand (L)1. The vastly different ‘cold’ versus ‘hot’ TNBC tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) plays a key role in this heterogeneous ICB efficacy. 

Here, a 4T1-cold- and 4T1-hot-based mouse TNBC model was used to identify differential TIME adaptation mechanisms to anti-PD-L1 blockade. Despite the absence of tumor growth reduction, anti-PD-L1-treated 4T1-cold primary tumors showed increased expression of genes associated with anti-tumor immunity and inflammatory responses, shifting their ‘cold’ TIME to a ‘hot’ state with downregulation of cellular mitosis and tumor progression hallmarks. In contrast, anti-PD-L1 treatment upregulated tumor progression hallmarks in 4T1-hot tumors. Using a public single cell RNA-sequencing atlas from human TNBC patient tumors, we annotated significantly upregulated genes in 4T1-cold and 4T1-hot primary tumors upon anti-PD-L1 treatment to CXCL10+ tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), respectively, and set up a specific gene signature for both populations. Although the CXCL10+ TAM signature associated with significantly increased distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) in human TNBC patients, the high PD-L1 expression of these TAMs highlights its potential immunosuppressive properties in the TNBC TIME. The CAF signature associated with significantly decreased DMFS in human TNBC patients and decreased progression-free survival (PFS) upon anti-PD-L1 treatment in other cancer types. Collectively, our mouse TNBC models identified relevant TIME-specific adaptation mechanisms to ICB for future translational studies.}},
  author       = {{Salembier, Robbe and De Haes, Caro and Wylin, Bo and Demeyere, Kristel and Van Laere, Steven and Van Renne, Nicolaas and Sotiriou, Christos and Meyer, Evelyne and Steenbrugge, Jonas}},
  booktitle    = {{Immune Niches in Cancer & Inflammation Conference 2025, Abstracts}},
  keywords     = {{TNBC,Cancer,ICB,PD-L1,immune checkpoint blockade,triple-negative breast cancer}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  location     = {{Bruges, Belgium}},
  title        = {{Transcriptomic adaptation of the cold versus hot triple-negative breast tumor immune microenvironment to PD-L1 blockade}},
  url          = {{https://www.vibconferences.be/events/immune-niches-in-cancer-inflammation#program}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}