Publication Date
8-26-2025
Journal
Cancers
DOI
10.3390/cancers17172780
PMID
40940877
PMCID
PMC12427482
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
8-26-2025
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Post-print
Abstract
Osteosarcoma is a type of bone cancer that mostly affects kids and teens. The biggest danger is when the cancer spreads to the lungs, and current treatments do not work well for those cases. Immunotherapy, which helps the body’s immune system fight cancer, has worked for other cancers but is limited for osteosarcoma because we do not fully understand the environment around the tumor. Our research looked at various cells around the tumor to study why patients have worse outcomes. We found that certain cells, called M2 macrophages (M2) and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC), which weaken the immune system, are very common in these tumors. When there are a lot of these cells, the cancer is more likely to come back. Even worse, when these immune-suppressing cells are very close to M2 in the tumor, the cancer is much more likely to spread to the patient’s lungs. We further showed that M2 helps cancer spread to the lungs in mice. We also discovered that M2 releases a protein called MIP-1α (CCL3), which enhances the ability of cancer cells to spread. These findings could help create new treatments to target these cells and stop the cancer from spreading.
Keywords
osteosarcoma, metastasis, imaging mass cytometry, tumor microenvironment, immunosuppressive cells, spatial analysis, M2 macrophages, immune-tumor crosstalk, MIP-1α, migration
Published Open-Access
yes
Recommended Citation
Gyau, Benjamin B; Wang, Junyan; Wu, Weiguo; et al., "Multiplex Imaging Mass Cytometry Reveals Prognostic Immunosuppressive Subpopulations and Macrophage-Driven Metastasis in Osteosarcoma" (2025). Faculty, Staff and Students Publications. 2515.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/baylor_docs/2515
Graphical Abstract