Fig. 3: Steroidogenesis inhibition augments anti-tumour immunity by suppressing glucocorticoid (GC) signalling.

A Dot plot delineate the prevalence of steroid hormone receptor genes in tumour-infiltrating immune cells from TNBC patients. B Comparison of Tsc22d3 expression within immune cells of Vav1^Cre and Cyp11a1^cKO mice (sc-RNAseq). C Volcano plot depicting the differential gene expression in DCs post-steroidogenesis inhibition. p values and fold changes calculated using Seurat (version 3.2.2.). D Experimental design for E–I Human PBMC-derived monocytes were differentiated toward DCs +/− GC. E Expression levels of selected genes between GC-treated (DC-Mock) and treated (DC-GC) groups. F CD86 expression (FACS) in DC-Mock and DC-GC groups (N = 5). G Cytokine concentrations (ELISA) in DC-Mock and DC-GC groups (N = 5). H–I Representative FACS profiles (left panel) and average percentage expression (right panel) of IFNg (H) and TNFa (I) in CD8 ⁺ T cells from the mixed lymphocyte response assay (naïve T and DC co-culture assay, T-DC-Mock and T-DC-GC groups, N = 3, biological replicates. J Violin plots revealing indicated gene set signature scores in DCs from scRNA-seq data of tumours of either Vav1^Cre or Cyp11a1^cKO mice. K Representative FACS histogram (left) and bar graph (right) displaying the expression intensity and percentage of IL-10 in DCs from Vav1^Cre or Cyp11a1^cKO mice (N = 5). L Violin plots reveal the indicated gene set signature scores in CD8 + T cells from scRNA-seq data of tumours of Vav1^Cre and Cyp11a1^cKO mice. M–N FACS diagrams (left), and bar graph (right) displaying the expression intensity and percentage of Ifng (L) and Tnfa (M) in CD8 ⁺ T cells from Vav1^Cre or Cyp11a1^cKO mice (N = 4). In all violin plots, each dot represents a single cell. The box plot shows the median as the center, the 25th and 75th percentiles as the box boundaries, whiskers extending to the most extreme values within 1.5×IQR from the quartiles, and outliers plotted separately. All error bars are Mean ± SEM. All p values were calculated by unpaired two-tailed t-test unless stated. Source data for F–I, K, M, N are provided as a Source Data file. N defines each individual donor or mouse or independent biological replicates. Figure 3D was partly generated using Servier Medical Art, licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license.