BackgroundColorectal cancer stem cells (CSCs) represent a rare subpopulation within tumors endowed with self-renewal capabilities and are recognized as key drivers of tumor initiation, metastasis, and therapeutic resistance. These cells also display immunomodulatory properties that enable them to evade immune surveillance.
However, the mechanisms underlying their immune evasion, including the role of immune checkpoints (ICPs), remain poorly understood. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize the inhibitory ICP expression landscape in colorectal CSC-enriched models and to evaluate its association with tumor microenvironment and biomarkers related to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) response.MethodsCSC-enriched spheroids, cancer stem-like cells (CSLCs), were generated from four colorectal cancer cell lines (HCT-116, HT-29, SW480, SW620).
Differential expression of stemness markers and inhibitory ICPs between spheroid cultures and bulk cancer cells were assessed by real-time PCR, Western blotting, Immunofluorescence, and flow cytometry. Additionally, RNA-seq and clinical data from colorectal adenocarcinoma patients in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) were retrieved and stratified using the mRNA expression-based stemness index (mRNAsi), a stemness score derived using the one-class logistic regression machine learning algorithm.
Frontiers in Immunology published a clinical update in Infectious Disease on 08 Apr 2026.
The item focuses on Expression profiling of inhibitory immune checkpoints in colorectal cancer stem cells and their association with tumor immunity and immunotherapy biomarkers.
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