Spatial immune remodeling of the liver metastases: discovering the path to antimetastatic therapy

Abstract

The intrinsic characteristics of metastatic tumors are of great importance in terms of the development of antimetastatic treatment strategies. Elucidation from a spatial immune perspective has the potential to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms underlying immune escape, effectively addressing the limitations of relying solely on the analysis of immune cell subpopulation transcriptional profiles. Advances in spatial omics technology enable researchers to precisely analyze precious liver metastasis samples in a high-throughput manner, revealing spatial alterations in immune cell distribution induced by metastasis and exploring the molecular basis of the remodeling process. The aggregation of specific cell subpopulations in distinct regions not only modifies local immune characteristics but also concurrently affects global biological behaviors of liver metastatic tumors. Identifying specific spatial immune characteristics in pretreatment or early-stage treatment tissue samples may achieve accurate clinical predictions. Moreover, developing strategies that target spatial immune remodeling is a promising avenue for future antimetastatic therapy.

Keywords: Immune modulatory; Tumor infiltrating lymphocyte - TIL; Tumor microenvironment - TME.

Figure 1. Focusing on spatial immune remodeling of the liver metastases. Liver metastatic tumors are primarily characterized by two major spatial immune characteristics: functional communities and compartmentalization. Exploring the characteristics and molecular mechanisms of spatial immune remodeling of the LMN holds promises to provide more valuable insights into clinical decisions and the development of antimetastatic therapy. LMN, liver metastatic niche; TLSs, tertiary lymphoid structures.