%0 Journal Article
%T Synergistic upregulation of PD‑L1 in tumor cells and CD39 in tumor‑infiltrating CD8+ T cells leads to poor prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.
%A Kang X
%A Zhao S
%A Lin S
%A Li J
%A Wang S
%J Oncol Lett
%V 28
%N 2
%D 2024 Aug
%M 38933811
%F 3.111
%R 10.3892/ol.2024.14501
%X The immune escape of tumor cells and functional status of tumor-infiltrating T cells may serve pivotal roles in the tumor immune microenvironment and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The present study enrolled 91 patients with HCC and examined programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression in tumor cells and CD39 expression in tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells in patient samples using multiplex immunofluorescence assays. The impact of PD-L1 and CD39 expression levels on the prognosis of patients with HCC was investigated utilizing Kaplan-Meier analyses. The individual upregulation of PD-L1 in tumor cells, as well as the individual upregulation of CD39 expression in tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells did not significantly affect the prognosis of patients with HCC. However, the simultaneous upregulation of both PD-L1 in tumor cells and CD39 in tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells was associated with reduced overall survival in patients with HCC. Therefore, the results of the present study suggested that the interplay between tumor cell immune escape and tumor-infiltrating immune cell functional status within the tumor immune microenvironment may have had a substantial impact on the prognosis of patients with HCC. Mechanistically, increased expression levels of PD-L1 in tumor cells may improve the immune escape capacity of tumors, whilst upregulation of CD39 in tumor-infiltrating T cells may be associated with T cell exhaustion. Therefore, the upregulation of PD-L1 expression in tumor cells, in conjunction with the exhaustion of tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells, could serve as a future potential prognostic indicator of patients with HCC.