Gene expression and pathway analysis of quiescent CD8+ T cells from liver cancer, liver sinusoid and peripheral blood : study on toxicogenomics and prevention targeting

Abstract

The quiescent status of T cell immunology is associated with the development of tumor in liver cancer. However, the cause of T cell quiescence in the tumor microenvironment is still unclear. Recently, it has been proposed that toxic substances could inhibit T-cell immune response to tumor cells. Since sinusoidal structure is primarily involved in anti-toxic function and toxic retaining mechanism, in this paper we study the role of liver sinusoid in liver tumor by comparing gene expression levels of quiescent genes in CD8+ T cells isolated from three sources: peripheral blood, sinusoidal structure, and tumor tissue. We observed that most quiescent genes are up regulated in CD8+ T cells isolated from sinusoidal structure as compared with those from liver tumor and peripheral blood. The genes and pathways predicted in this project will be candidates for drug targeting.