Gene Expression and Pathway Analysis of Quiescent CD8+ T Cells from Liver Cancer, Liver Sinusoid and Peripheral Blood - Study on Toxicogenomics and Prevention Targeting

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.