Glioblastoma cellular MAP4K1 facilitates tumor growth and disrupts T effector cell infiltration

MAP4K1 has been identified as a cancer immunotherapy target. Whether and how cancer cell-intrinsic MAP4K1 contributes to glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) progression remains unclear. We found that MAP4K1 was highly expressed in the glioma cells of human GBM specimens. High levels of MAP4K1 mRNA were prevalent in IDH-WT and 1p/19q non-codeletion gliomas and correlated with poor prognosis of patients. MAP4K1 silencing inhibited GBM cell proliferation and glioma growth. Transcriptome analysis of GBM cells and patient samples showed that MAP4K1 modulated cytokine‒cytokine receptor interactions and chemokine signaling pathway, including IL-18R and IL-6R. Importantly, MAP4K1 loss down-regulated membrane-bound IL-18R/IL-6R by inhibiting the PI3K-AKT pathway, whereas MAP4K1 restoration rescued this phenotype and therefore GBM cell proliferation. MAP4K1 deficiency abolished GBM cell pro-proliferation responses to IL-18, suggesting an oncogenic role of MAP4K1 via the intrinsic IL-18/IL-18R pathway. In addition, GBM cell-derived MAP4K1 impaired T-cell migration and reduced CD8(+) T-cell infiltration in mouse glioma models. Together, our findings provide novel insight into the pathological significance of GBM cell-intrinsic MAP4K1 in driving tumor growth and immune evasion by remodeling cytokine–chemokine networks.