The prognostic effect of infiltrating immune cells is shaped by proximal M2 macrophages in lung adenocarcinoma

The spatial arrangement of immune cells within the tumor microenvironment (TME) and their interactions play critical roles in the initiation and development of cancer. Several advanced technologies such as imaging mass cytometry (IMC) providing the immunological landscape of the TME with single-cell resolution. In this study, we develop a new method to quantify the spatial proximity between different cell types based on single-cell spatial data. Using this method on IMC data from 416 lung adenocarcinoma patients, we show that the proximity between different cell types is more correlated with patient prognosis compared to the traditional features such immune cell density and fractions. Consistent with previous reports, our results validate that proximity of T helper (Th) and B cells to cancer cells is associated with survival benefits. More importantly, we discover that the proximity of M2 macrophages to multiple immune cells is associated with poor prognosis. When Th/B cells are stratified into M2-distal and M2-proximal, the abundance of the former but not the latter category of Th/B cells is correlated with enhanced patient survival. Additionally, the abundance of M2-distal and M2-proximal cytotoxic T cells (Tc) is respectively associated with good and poor prognosis. Our results indicate that the prognostic effect of Th, Tc, and B cells in the tumor microenvironment is modulated by the nearby M2 macrophages. The proposed new method proposed can be readily applied to all single-cell spatial data for revealing functional impact of immune cell interactions.