Intercellular adhesion molecule 1 links glioblastoma biology to a scalable prognostic model integrating clinical,...

Glioblastoma (GB) exhibits marked tumor microenvironmental heterogeneity, contributing to both therapy resistance and poor survival outcomes. Intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM1) is an inflammation-associated adhesion molecule implicated in immune-stromal interactions, but its clinical and biological significance in GB remains incompletely defined.

We performed ICAM1 immunohistochemistry, bulk RNA sequencing, DNA methylation analysis, single-nucleus RNA sequencing, and preoperative MRI-derived morphologic feature analysis across multi-institutional cohorts of treatment-naïve IDH-wildtype GB.

High ICAM1 expression at both transcript and protein levels is associated with shorter overall survival, particularly within the mesenchymal transcriptional subtype. ICAM1 expression is inversely associated with promoter methylation. Single-nucleus RNA-sequencing analysis shows that ICAM1-high tumors are enriched for mesenchymal, hypoxia, stress-associated, and immunosuppressive myeloid programs, suggesting that ICAM1 reflects a multicompartment inflammatory tumor ecosystem. ICAM1 expression, tumor surface irregularity, and patient age are independently prognostic and minimally correlated, capturing complementary clinical, imaging, and molecular features of GB biology. When combined, our Clinical-Imaging-Molecular (CIM) framework refines outcome prediction across independent GB cohorts using routinely available clinical data, conventional imaging, and standard immunohistochemistry.

ICAM1 characterizes an immune-remodeled, stress-adapted GB ecosystem associated with poor clinical outcomes. Integrating patient age, surface irregularity, and ICAM1 expression yields a scalable and clinically accessible prognostic framework for GB, supporting tailored outcome prediction, particularly in low- and middle-resource settings without routine access to advanced molecular profiling.