Hepatocellular carcinoma and macrophage interaction induced tumor immunosuppression via Treg requires TLR4 signaling

Figure 5 Correlation between the expression of toll-like receptor 4 in hepatocellular carcinoma specimens, tumor Union for International Cancer Control stage, and CD4+CD25^high FOXP3+ regulatory T cell. A: Toll-like receptor 4 expression was positively correlated with the number of CD4+CD25^highFOXP3+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) in peripheral blood. Analysis of data was performed using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients (n = 60, r = 0.411, P < 0.001); B: According to Union for International Cancer Control/tumor-node-metastasis classification, there were 19 cases, 24 cases, and 17 cases at stage I, II and III hepatocellular carcinoma, respectively. Statistically negative correlations were found in all comparisons between the 3 groups (χ² = 0.921, P = 0.631) using the Kruskal-Wallis test.