Supplementary Table S7 - PDF file 93K, Correlation analysis of radiotherapy-induced immunological changes in sarcoma patients: qRT-PCR analysis was performed on 37 pairs of FFPE human sarcomas for (A) immune effector cells/ molecules, (B) immune suppressor cells/ molecules, (C) effector cytokines, (D) suppressor cytokines, (E) transcription factors and (F) CT-antigens . The delta-delta Ct values were computed for each of the target genes against each other. A bivariate correlation analysis was performed and is given by the Spearman`s rho correlation coefficient (rho) and the significance by the two-tailed P value. * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level, ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level. All correlations with a significant P value are in bold
ARTICLE ABSTRACT
Purpose: The tumor immune microenvironment plays a crucial role in the development and progression of cancer. Sarcomas are a group of heterogeneous soft tissue malignancies that are often treated with radiotherapy as a part of the treatment concept. There is increasing evidence that radiotherapy leads to alterations in the tumor microenvironment, particularly with respect to the immune infiltrate. This study has been carried out to develop a better understanding of such changes following radiotherapy.Experimental Design: We retrospectively analyzed the expression of 35 immune response-related genes by quantitative reverse transcription PCR analysis and immunohistochemistry on paired formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor samples from 38 sarcoma patients before and after radiotherapy.Results: We observed that radiotherapy results in a significant upregulation of several immune effectors and cancer-testis antigens and a concomitant downregulation of immune suppressors, indicating that radiotherapy may support the immune defense in sarcomas.Conclusions: These novel findings may have implications for the design of therapeutic regimens which exploite the immune system in sarcoma patients by combining standard radiotherapy with immunotherapeutic strategies. Clin Cancer Res; 19(17); 4843–53. ©2013 AACR.
