Integrated Spatial and Single-Cell Transcriptomics Reveals Poor Prognostic Ligand-Receptor Pairs in Glioblastoma

Glioblastoma (GBM) is an aggressive and lethal malignant brain tumor. Cell-cell interactions (CCIs) in the tumor microenvironment, mediated by ligand-receptor (LR) pairs, are known to contribute to its poor prognosis. However, the prognostic influence of CCIs on patients with GBM and the spatial expression profiles of such LR pairs within tumor tissues remain incompletely understood. This study aimed to identify prognostic LR pairs in GBM and their intratumoral localization via multitranscriptomic analysis. The CCIs among GBM cells as well as between GBM and niche cells were comprehensively evaluated using 40,958 cells in single-cell RNA sequencing datasets. They were found to form intercellular networks in GBM by specific LR pairs, which were mainly implicated in extracellular matrix (ECM)-related biological processes. Survival analysis revealed that 13 LR pairs related to ECM biological processes contributed to poor prognosis (p < 0.05, and 95% confidence intervals > 1). Notably, our spatial transcriptomic analysis using three independent GBM cohorts revealed that the identified poor prognostic LR pairs were localized in specific regions within GBM tissues. Although the clinical importance of these LR pairs requires further investigation, our findings suggest potential therapeutic targets for GBM.