Crosstalk between microglia and neural stem cells influences the relapse of glioblastoma in GBM immunological microenvironment

Interactions between immunocytes and Neural Stem Cells (NSCs) in glioblastoma multiforme still remains un-clear. Here, microglial cells and NSCs in peri-tumoral tissue were analyzed via single-cell whole-transcriptome sequencing. Results showed that two clusters of putative NSCs (the EGFR+BCAN+ cell cluster, and the FABPT+H19+ cell cluster) exhibited immune-related functions. Two clusters of putative microglia (the XIST+PDK4+ and APOC1+CCL3+ cell clusters) exhibited the function of glial cell activation. The results of ligand receptor network analysis disclosed significant interactions between the APOC1+CCL3+ microglia and the NSCs. Correlation analysis on the overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS) with 102 potential molecular targets in the TCGA database showed that a much larger number of molecules were correlated with RFS than with OS (34.31% vs. 8.82%), nine of them were validated in clinical specimens. In conclusion, crosstalk between APOC1+CCL3+ microglia and multiple molecule-labeled NSCs distal to the tumor core play certain roles on the recurrence of GBM.

Automated summary

Single-cell whole-transcriptome sequencing revealed interactions between putative NSCs and microglial cells in the peri-tumoral tissue of glioblastoma multiforme. Ligand receptor network analysis showed significant interactions between APOC1+CCL3+ microglia and NSCs. Correlation analysis with potential molecular targets demonstrated their roles in the recurrence of GBM.