Circulating low density neutrophils of breast cancer patients are associated with their worse prognosis due to the impairment of T cell responses

Abstract

Neutrophils are prominent immune components of tumors, having either anti-tumor (N1) or pro-tumor activity (N2). Circulating neutrophils, divided into high density neutrophils (HDN) and low density neutrophils (LDN), functionally mirror those N1 and N2 cells, respectively. LDN are rare in non-pathological conditions, but frequent in cancer, exhibiting a pro-tumor phenotype. These findings have been mainly demonstrated in animal models, thus proper validation in humans is still imperative. Here, we observed that LDN were increased in the blood of breast cancer (BC) patients, particularly with metastatic disease. Within the population of non-metastatic patients, LDN were more prevalent in patients with poor response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy than patients with a good response. The higher incidence of LDN in BC patients with severe disease or resistance to treatment can be explained by their pro-tumor/immunosuppressive characteristics. Moreover, the percentage of LDN in BC patients' blood was negatively correlated with activated cytotoxic T lymphocytes and positively correlated with immunosuppressive regulatory T cells. The ability of LDN to spoil anti-tumor immune responses was further demonstrated ex vivo. Hence, this study reveals the potential of LDN as a biomarker of BC response to treatment and opens new avenues for developing new immunotherapies.