Jornal de Imunologia Clínica e Celular
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Association of CD4+ CD25+ FOXP3+ Regulatory T-cells and Human Papilloma Virus Infection in Egyptian Women with Breast Cancer

Amany M. Tawfeik, Ahmed Mora, Ahmed Osman, Manar M. Moneer, Nabila El-Sheikh, Mohamed Elrefaei

Several subsets of regulatory CD4+ T cells (CD4+ Tregs) have been described in peripheral blood and tumor microenvironment of breast cancer (BC) patients and may play a key role in the progression of BC. High-risk human papilloma virus (HPV) have a causal role in a significant proportion of cervical, and head, and neck tumors and may play an important role in evoking neoplasia in BC. In this study we assessed the prevalence of CD4+Tregs (CD4+ CD25+ FOXP3+ cells) and CD3+ CD8+ T cells by flow cytometry in peripheral blood from a total of 55 Egyptian women, including 20 treatment-naïve BC, 15 with breast benign lesions (BBL) and 20 healthy volunteers (HV). Highrisk HPV genotype type 16, 18, and 31 was investigated in breast tissue from all BC and BBL patients using Real- Time PCR. HPV was detected in 4 BC, but in none of BBL patients. The frequency of CD4+ Tregs was significantly higher in BC compared to BBL and HV, (p < 0.001). In addition, we observed a significantly higher frequency of CD3+ CD8+ T cells in peripheral blood of patients with late stage III BC compared to early stage I and II BC (p = 0.011). However, there was no significant association between the ratio of CD8+ T cell to CD4+ Tregs frequencies and the expression of Estrogen Receptor (ER), Progesterone Receptor (PR), and Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (HER2). The potential role CD4+ Tregs as a prognostic or predictive parameter should be analyzed in a larger longitudinal study with sufficient follow-up time.