Progress of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Regulating Immune Cell in the Tumor Microenvironment of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
Tao He, Silin Yu, Chaoyan Wu
Abstract
Limitations in the therapies of triple-negative breast cancer, the strongest invasive subtype of breast cancer, have led to unsatisfactory clinical outcomes for patients. The efficacy of immunotherapy, an emerging treatment choice for triple-negative breast cancer, is highly related to the functional expression of each immune cell in the tumor immune microenvironment. Therefore, improving the immune response of immune cells in the tumor immune microenvironment is beneficial to enhance the effects of immunotherapy for triple-negative breast cancer clinically. There is now growing evidence that the active ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine, especially herbal medicine can influence the correlation of 2 major immune cell subpopulations in the tumor microenvironment of triple-negative breast cancer: tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (T lymphocytes, B lymphocytes, Natural killer cells) and tumor-associated myeloid cells (macrophages, myeloid-derived suppressor cells, dendritic cells, neutrophils) expression of immune effect. This suggests that traditional Chinese medicine can effectively improve the immunosuppressive state of tumor microenvironment and enhance the effects of clinical immunotherapy for triple-negative breast cancer.