Fig. 2

TIM expression inhibits CD8⁺ T lymphocyte infiltration in the RENJI breast cancer patient cohort. a Representative CD8a immunohistochemical (IHC) images based on different TIM expression levels. The scale bar is 50 μm. b Relative mRNA expression level of CD8a and TIM by RT-qPCR. β-actin was used as the internal reference. Significance was tested by Student’s t-test. c Heatmap plot of the clinicopathological features in patients with different TIM expression levels. Statistical significance was performed by the χ² test. Significance was tested as described above: **p-value < 0.01; ***p-value < 0.001; ****p-value < 0.0001. IHC Immunohistochemistry, RT-qPCR quantitative real-time PCR, ER estrogen receptor