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Updated: Oct 21, 2025
Isolation and Flow Cytometric Analysis of Glioma-infiltrating Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells
Published on: November 28, 2015
The molecular feature of macrophages in tumor immune microenvironment of glioma patients
Hao Zhang1, Yue-Bei Luo2, Wantao Wu3
1Department of Neurosurgery, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, China.
Background:
Gliomas are one of the most common types of primary tumors in central nervous system. Previous studies have found that macrophages actively participate in tumor growth.
Methods:
Weighted gene co-expression network analysis was used to identify meaningful macrophage-related gene genes for clustering. Pamr, SVM, and neural network were applied for validating clustering results. Somatic mutation and methylation were used for defining the features of identified clusters. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between the stratified groups after performing elastic regression and principal component analyses were used for the construction of MScores. The expression of macrophage-specific genes were evaluated in tumor microenvironment based on single cell sequencing analysis. A total of 2365 samples from 15 glioma datasets and 5842 pan-cancer samples were used for external validation of MScore.
Results:
Macrophages were identified to be negatively associated with the survival of glioma patients. Twenty-six macrophage-specific DEGs obtained by elastic regression and PCA were highly expressed in macrophages at single-cell level. The prognostic value of MScores in glioma was validated by the active proinflammatory and metabolic profile of infiltrating microenvironment and response to immunotherapies of samples with this signature. MScores managed to stratify patient survival probabilities in 15 external glioma datasets and pan-cancer datasets, which predicted worse survival outcome. Sequencing data and immunohistochemistry of Xiangya glioma cohort confirmed the prognostic value of MScores. A prognostic model based on MScores demonstrated high accuracy rate.
Conclusion:
Our findings strongly support a modulatory role of macrophages, especially M2 macrophages in glioma progression and warrants further experimental studies.
Insights
Macrophages, particularly M2 macrophages, significantly influence glioma progression. A novel MScore model accurately predicts worse patient survival, highlighting macrophages as key therapeutic targets in brain tumors.
Area of Science:
- Neuro-oncology
- Immunology
- Computational Biology
Background:
- Gliomas are common primary central nervous system tumors.
- Macrophages play a crucial role in tumor growth and progression.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify macrophage-related genes in glioma.
- To develop a prognostic model (MScore) for glioma patients based on macrophage activity.
Main Methods:
- Weighted gene co-expression network analysis.
- Machine learning (Pamr, SVM, neural network) for clustering.
- Elastic regression, principal component analysis (PCA) for DEGs and MScore construction.
- Single-cell sequencing for evaluating macrophage gene expression.
- Validation on 15 glioma and 5842 pan-cancer datasets.
Main Results:
- Macrophages negatively correlate with glioma patient survival.
- Twenty-six macrophage-specific DEGs were identified and highly expressed in tumor-associated macrophages.
- The MScore model accurately stratified patient survival, predicting worse outcomes.
- MScore demonstrated prognostic value in external validation cohorts and confirmed by immunohistochemistry.
Conclusions:
- Macrophages, especially M2 subtypes, modulate glioma progression.
- The MScore serves as a robust prognostic biomarker for glioma.
- Further experimental studies are warranted to explore macrophage-targeted therapies.
