Fig. 4: Tumor infiltrating lymphocyte density increased during treatment then decreased below baseline at surgery time.
From: Chemotherapy induces dynamic immune responses in breast cancers that impact treatment outcome
TIL density distributions over three time points were compared between tumors from pCR and RD patients in the overall cohort (a), TN (b), and non-TN subtypes (c). d Distribution of stromal TIL scores over time in TN tumors stratified into pCR and RD groups. Asterisks indicate statistical significance based on linear mixed effects regression (LMER) adjusting for tumor purity and subtype as covariates. *0.01 < p < 0.05; **0.001 < p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. See Supplementary Table 2 for exact p-values. For all box-and-whisker plots, the box is bounded by the first and third quartile with a horizontal line at the median and whiskers extend to the maximum and minimum value. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. e, f Multiplex immunofluorescence (IF), H&E and PD-L1 IHC images showing the same regions of tumors taken at T1 and T2 from a TNBC patient—BR294 (e) and a HER2+ patient—BR308 (f). Markers include CD45RO, CD3, CD4, CD8, PD-L1, and Pan-CK. Chromogenic IHC and multiplex IF assays were only performed once on tumor biopsy samples following assay optimization. Scale bars in the lower-left corner of the micrographs show 200 μm.
