Positive impact of autophagy in human breast cancer cells on local immunosurveillance

In human breast cancer cells, the presence of cytoplasmic dots positive for microtubule-associated proteins 1A/1B light chain 3B (LC3B) indicates enhanced autophagic flux and favorable prognosis. LC3B+ puncta within malignant cells positively correlate with the intratumoral abundance of CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes, yet negatively correlate with the frequency of local FOXP3+ regulatory T cells and CD68+ tumor-associated macrophages, resulting in an improvement of CD8+/FOXP+ or CD8+/CD68+ ratios