{"doi":"10.1084/jem.20221847","title":"Cancer cell plasticity and MHC-II–mediated immune tolerance promote breast cancer metastasis to lymph nodes","abstract":"Tumor-draining lymph nodes (TDLNs) are important for tumor antigen-specific T cell generation and effective anticancer immune responses. However, TDLNs are often the primary site of metastasis, causing immune suppression and worse outcomes. Through cross-species single-cell RNA-Seq analysis, we identified features defining cancer cell heterogeneity, plasticity, and immune evasion during breast cancer progression and lymph node metastasis (LNM). A subset of cancer cells in the lymph nodes exhibited elevated MHC class II (MHC-II) gene expression in both mice and humans. MHC-II+ cancer cells lacked costimulatory molecule expression, leading to regulatory T cell (Treg) expansion and fewer CD4+ effector T cells in TDLNs. Genetic knockout of MHC-II reduced LNM and Treg expansion, while overexpression of the MHC-II transactivator, Ciita, worsened LNM and caused excessive Treg expansion. These findings demonstrate that cancer cell MHC-II expression promotes metastasis and immune evasion in TDLNs.","journal":"The Journal of Experimental Medicine","year":2023,"id":318416,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":65,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9469,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":641136,"name":"Ethel R. Pereira","orcid":"0000-0003-0562-4536","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1025653,"name":"Patrik Andersson","orcid":"0000-0002-8454-3963","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":618622,"name":"Zohreh Amoozgar","orcid":"0000-0001-8285-8024","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":625811,"name":"Jan Willem van Wijnbergen","orcid":"0000-0003-2828-321X","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":240994,"name":"Meghan J. O’Melia","orcid":"0000-0003-2223-1849","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":288134,"name":"Hengbo Zhou","orcid":"0000-0002-9948-7909","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":640701,"name":"Sampurna Chatterjee","orcid":"0000-0003-0850-0328","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":625943,"name":"William W. Ho","orcid":"0000-0002-1272-8184","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":618620,"name":"Jessica M. Posada","orcid":"0000-0002-9056-0735","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":625942,"name":"Ashwin S. Kumar","orcid":"0000-0003-3251-9977","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":855740,"name":"Satoru Morita","orcid":"0000-0002-5551-8662","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1025654,"name":"Lutz Menzel","orcid":"0000-0002-3816-6255","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":64929,"name":"Charlie Chung","orcid":"0000-0003-1566-9498","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":64922,"name":"Ilgin Ergin","orcid":"0000-0002-0007-6502","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":459148,"name":"Dennis Jones","orcid":"0000-0002-1401-9701","position":15,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":258713,"name":"Peigen Huang","orcid":"0000-0002-3184-6493","position":16,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":39709,"name":"Semir Beyaz","orcid":"0000-0003-4730-4012","position":17,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":444976,"name":"Timothy P. Padera","orcid":"0000-0002-3453-9384","position":18,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":628137,"name":"Pin‐Ji Lei","orcid":"0000-0003-2539-5179","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":87,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:07:01.300821Z","pmid":"37341991","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}