Breast cancer progression and metastasis involve the action of multiple transcription factors in tumors and in the cells of the tumor microenvironment (TME) and understanding how these transcription factors are coordinated can guide novel therapeutic strategies. Myocardin related transcription factors A and B (MRTFA/B) are two related transcription factors that redundantly control cancer cell invasion and metastasis in mouse models of breast cancer, but their roles in human cancer are incompletely understood. Here, we used a combination of multiplexed immunofluorescence and bioinformatics analyses to show that MRTFA/B are concurrently activated in tumor cells, but they show distinct patterns of expression across different histological subtypes and in the TME. Importantly, MRTFA expression was elevated in metastatic tumors of African American patients, who disproportionately die from breast cancer. Interestingly, in contrast to publicly available mRNA expression data, MRTFA was similarly expressed across estrogen receptor (ER) positive and negative breast tumors, while MRTFB expression was highest in ER+ breast tumors. Furthermore, MRTFA was specifically expressed in the perivascular antigen presenting cells (APCs) and its expression correlated with the expression of the immune checkpoint protein V-set immunoregulatory receptor (VSIR). These results provide unique insights into how MRTFA and MRTFB can promote metastasis in human cancer, into the racial disparities of their expression patterns, and their function within the complex breast cancer TME.
Keywords: MRTFA; MRTFB; Myocardin related transcription factors; VSIR; antigen presenting cells; breast cancer; cancer health disparities; dendritic cells; immune checkpoint; metastasis; tumor immunity; tumor microenvironment.