Research Paper Volume 14, Issue 10 pp 4357—4375

Glioblastoma: two immune subtypes under the surface of the cold tumor

Wu Xiong1,2, *, , Cong Li1,2, *, , Guang Kong2, *, , Bowen Wan3, , Siming Wang1,2, , Jin Fan1,2, ,

  • 1 Department of Orthopedics, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
  • 2 Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
  • 3 Department of Orthopedics, Clinical Medical College of Yangzhou University, Subei People's Hospital of Jiangsu, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, China
* Equal contribution

Received: November 8, 2021       Accepted: April 22, 2022       Published: May 23, 2022      

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204067
How to Cite

Copyright: © 2022 Xiong et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Glioblastoma is classified as an immunocompromised tumor. The immune pattern beneath the cold tumor surface, however, has yet to be confirmed. Understanding the immune pattern of glioblastoma will aid in the development of effective treatment strategies. We performed weighted gene co-expression network analysis on all immune-related genes in TCGA-GBM transcriptional data and screened 35 prognosis-related immune genes. Unsupervised consistent clustering of these genes was used to analyze the immunological pattern of GBM. A glioblastoma immune prognostic score was developed by using 13 genes discovered by cox regression methods and verified with the GEO dataset to assess the immune profile, prognosis, and immunotherapy effects in individual patients. Glioblastoma has two immune modalities, immune tolerance and immunodeficiency, with distinct immune microenvironments, tumor-associated macrophages being one of the most promising new therapeutic targets. GIPS is a promising biomarker for assessing immune evasion mechanisms, immunotherapy responses, and prognosis in patients.

Abbreviations

GBM: glioblastoma; TME: tumor microenvironment; WGCNA: Weighted gene coexpression network analysis; GIPS: glioblastoma immune prognostic score.