TREM2 promotes glioma progression and angiogenesis mediated by microglia/brain macrophages

TREM2, a myeloid cell-specific signaling molecule, controls essential functions of microglia and impacts on the pathogenesis of Alzheimers disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. TREM2 is also highly expressed in tumor-associated macrophages and plays detrimental roles in an experimental mouse sarcoma model. Here we studied whether TREM2 influences glioma progression. We found a sex- dependent effect of TREM2: the glioma volume is significantly attenuated in TREM2- deficient male but not female mice injected with GL261-EGFP glioma cells. The accumulation of glioma-associated microglia/macrophages (GAMs) and vascularization is reduced in male TREM2-deficient mice. A transcriptomic analysis of glioma tissue revealed that TREM2 deficiency suppresses angiogenic genes and MHC clusters. In an organotypic slice model devoid of functional vascularization, the tumor size was not affected by TREM2-deficiency. In human resection samples from glioblastoma, TREM2 is upregulated in GAMs. Based on the TCGA and CGGA databases, the TREM2 expression levels are negatively correlated with survival. Thus, the TREM2-dependent crosstalk between GAMs and the vasculature formation promotes glioma growth. Graphic abstractTREM2-dependent crosstalk between glioma-associated microglia/macrophages and the vasculature formation promotes glioma growth in male glioma mouse model. Created with BioRender.com O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=137 SRC="FIGDIR/small/540621v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (39K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@65bec7org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1d00961org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@117ee5eorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@227994_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG