Hypoxia restrains the expression of complement component 9 in tumor-associated macrophages promoting non-small cell lung cancer progression

The tumor microenvironment, including stroma cells, signaling molecules, and the extracellular matrix, critically regulates the growth and survival of cancer cells. Dissecting the active molecules in tumor microenvironment may uncover the key factors that can impact cancer progression. Human NSCLC tumor tissue-conditioned medium (TCM) and adjacent nontumor tissue-conditioned medium (NCM) were used to treat two NSCLC cells LSC1 and LAC1, respectively. Cell growth and foci formation assays were applied to assess the effects of TCM and NCM on cancer cells. The active factors were identified by protein mass spectrometry. Cell growth and foci formation assays showed that 8 of 26 NCM and none of TCM could effectively lead to tumor cell lysis, which was known as tumoricidal activity. And then protein mass spectrometry analysis and functional verifications confirmed that complement component 9 (C9) played a crucial role in the complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC)-mediated tumoricidal activity in vitro. Furthermore, immunofluorescent staining revealed that C9 specifically expressed in most alveolar macrophages (AMs) in adjacent lung tissues and a small fraction of tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in NSCLC tissues. Most importantly, the percentage of C9-positive cells in AMs or TAMs was responsible for the tumoricidal activity of NCM and TCM. Herein, we found that high expression of C9 in TAMs was a significant independent prognostic factor (P = 0.029), and associated with beneficial overall survival (P = 0.012) and disease-free survival (P = 0.016) for patients with NSCLC. Finally, we unveiled that hypoxic tumor microenvironment could switch the phenotype of macrophages from M1 to M2 forms, accompanying with the downregulation of C9 in TAMs. Collectively, our findings elucidated a novel role of TAMs expressing C9 in the prognosis of NSCLC patients, which provided a promising strategy in the development of anticancer treatments based on the CDC-mediated tumoricidal activity.