Macrophage barrier in the tumor microenvironment and potential clinical applications

Table 1 Spatial heterogeneity of macrophages in the TME

Cancer type	Model source	Technology	Spatial distribution	Ref.
Breast cancer	Human	Visium, scRNA-seq	Regions of elevated type I interferon within tumors exhibit an enrichment of CXCL10⁺ TAMs, which interact with T cells.	[29]
Hepatocellular carcinoma	Human	Visium	The central tumor core shows significant upregulation of CCL15 expression, attracting and polarizing M2-like macrophages.	[30]
Melanoma	Human	DSP, PickSeq, CyCIF	Macrophages with high PDL1 expression infiltrate the invasive tumor border, inhibiting immune cytotoxicity by engaging with PD1⁺ CTLs.	[31]
Neuroblastoma	Alk^F1178L; TH-MYCN or Alk^Y1282S; TH-MYCN mice	Visium, scRNA-seq, TCR repertoire	Co-localization of CD4⁺ T cells and macrophages.	[32]
Gliomas	Human	ISH, scRNA-seq, WES	Blood-derived TAMs significantly infiltrate pre-treated gliomas, congregating around blood vessels and necrotic areas.	[33]
Colorectal cancer	Human	Visium, scRNA-seq	Interaction between FAP⁺ fibroblasts and SPP1⁺ macrophages occurs in CRC. Their coexistence is linked to extracellular matrix expression.	[18]
Non-small cell lung carcinoma	Mice C57BL/6, Ms4a3-tdTom reporter and CD169-DT; Human	scRNA-seq, scATAC-seq	Tissue-resident macrophages accumulate near tumor cells during the early stages of tumor formation.	[15]

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