Increased M1 Macrophages Infiltration Correlated With Poor Survival Outcomes and Radiation Response in Gliomas

BACKGROUND: Gliomas are the malignance of a poor prognosis. The current WHO classification remains unable to predict survival outcomes accurately. Novel surrogates are highly required for improved stratification of patients and hence, allowing to delivery of the most appropriate treatment. METHODS: Transcriptional profiles of 301 glioma cases on the platform of Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) were retrospectively studied. RESULTS: Extracellular matrix (ECM) scores were established by integrating a panel of most featured gene-signatures, correlating well with pathological tumor stages. Linear regression analysis revealed that the ECM score corroborated with the infiltration status of monocytes, M0 and M1 macrophages. Furthermore, the WHO stage II-IV dependent abundance of those 3 immune cells was determined. Univariate and multivariate analysis of clinicopathological characteristics in the GBM cohort identified M1 enrichment score as an independent risk factor. A high abundance of M1 macrophages was associated with poor survival outcomes and radiotherapy response in IDH-wildtype GBM. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrated that M1 macrophages correlated with WHO grades and predicted robustly for the survival performance for GBM patients. Increased infiltration of M1 macrophages was associated with a poor radiation response for IDH-wildtype GBM. Together, it will facilitate more precise stratifications of glioma patients based on molecular and immunological surrogates.