Only in basal tumours but not luminal and Her2+ tumours, Beclin 1 and Atg5 expression levels were positively related to the abundance of B cells, CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, neutrophils and dendritic cells (DCs) (Supplementary Fig. 1a), indicating that the expression of the two autophagy-related genes might be involved in the tumour immune response, especially in TNBC. Here, CD4 is linked to neoplasm.