Correlation between metastasis-associated gene 1 expression and tumor-associated macrophages in non-small cell lung cancer

Ke Ma, Yan-Xin Li,  Qian-Qian Guo

Abstract:

The role of metastasis-associated gene 1 (MTA1) in the metastasis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has been proved, but its role in the tumor microenvironment is still insufficient. The study was performed to explore the correlation between MTA1 and tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) in NSCLC. The expression profile data of lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) and lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC) were downloaded from TCGA database. The tumor-infiltrating immune cells in each LUAD and LUSC patient were estimated using the CIBERSORT method. Then, the online TIMER database containing multiple algorithms was used to analyze the relationship between MTA1 and TAMs. Besides, correlations between MTA1 and TAMs markers were also explored. Additionally, the immunohistochemistry staining of MTA1 protein and CD206 was performed in 75 NSCLC tissue specimens. Associations of MTA1 and CD206 with the clinicopathological characteristics were analyzed, as well as the correlation between MTA1 and CD206. Based on different algorithms, MTA1 expression was correlated with the distribution of infiltrating immune cells in the tumor microenvironment and negatively correlated with tumor immune-stromal score. MTA1 was associated with TAMs markers according to TCGA database. In 75 NSCLC tissue specimens, the positive rate of MTA1 was 60.00% (45/75), which of CD206 was 42.67% (32/75). The MTA1 expression was significantly correlated with T stage, lymph node metastasis, and TNM stage. The CD206 expression was significantly correlated with T stage, lymph node metastasis, TNM stage, and tumor type. Additionally, we found that MTA1 was positively correlated with CD206 in NSCLC and LUSC. In NSCLC, MTA1 expression was correlated with the infiltrations of different types of macrophages and the expression of TAMs markers, as well as the M2-TAMs marker CD206, suggesting that MTA1-promoting tumor metastasis may mediate the infiltration of different types of macrophages in the tumor microenvironment.