Gene expression profiling of CD8 T cells induced by ovarian cancer cells suggests a possible mechanism for CD8 Treg cell production.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate a possible mechanism of CD8 regulatory T-cell (Treg) production in an ovarian cancer (OC) microenvironment.

Materials And Methods: Agilent microarray was used to detect changes in gene expression between CD8 T cells cultured with and without the SKOV3 ovarian adenocarcinoma cell line. QRT-PCR was performed to determine glycolysis gene expression in CD8 T cells from a transwell culturing system and OC patients. We also detected protein levels of glycolysis-related genes using Western blot analysis.

Results: Comparing gene expression profiles revealed significant differences in expression levels of 1420 genes, of which 246 were up-regulated and 1174 were down-regulated. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis indicated that biological processes altered in CD8 Treg are particularly associated with energy metabolism. CD8 Treg cells induced by co-culture with SKOV3 had lower glycolysis gene expression compared to CD8 T cells cultured alone. Glycolysis gene expression was also decreased in the CD8 T cells of OC patients.

Conclusions: These findings provide a comprehensive bioinformatics analysis of DEGs in CD8 T cells cultured with and without SKOV3 and suggests that metabolic processes may be a possible mechanism for CD8 Treg induction.