Specific Lineage Transition of Tumor-associated Macrophages Elicits Immune Evasion of Ascitic Tumor Cells in Gastric Cancer with Peritoneal Metastasis

Background: Gastric cancer with peritoneal metastasis (PM-GC), recognized as one of the deadliest cancers. However, whether and how the tumor cell-extrinsic tumor microenvironment (TME) is involved in the therapeutic failure remains unknown. Thus, this study systematically assessed the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment in ascites from patients with PM-GC, and its contribution to dissemination and immune evasion of ascites-disseminated tumor cells (aDTCs).

Methods: Sixty-three ascites and 43 peripheral blood (PB) samples from 51 patients with PM-GC were included in this study. aDTCs in ascites and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in paired PB were immunophenotypically profiled. Using single-cell RNA transcriptional sequencing (scRNA-seq), crosstalk between aDTCs and the TME features of ascites was inspected. Further studies on the mechanism underlying aDTCs-immune cells crosstalk were performed on in vitro cultured aDTCs.

Results: Immune cells in ascites interact with aDTCs, prompting their immune evasion. Specifically, we found that the tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in ascites underwent a continuum lineage transition from cathepsin (CTS) to complement 1q (C1Q) TAM. CTS TAM initially attracted the metastatic tumor cells to ascites, thereafter, transitioning terminally to C1Q TAM to trigger overproliferation and immune escape of aDTCs. Mechanistically, we demonstrated that C1Q TAMs significantly enhanced the expression of PD-L1 and NECTIN2 on aDTCs, which was driven by the activation of the C1q-mediated complement pathway.

Conclusions: For the first time, we identified an immunosuppressive macrophage transition from CTS to C1Q TAM in ascites from patients with PM-GC. This may contribute to developing potential TAM-targeted immunotherapies for PM-GC.