Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death globally. Surgical resection is currently the most suitable treatment for patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, recurrence is common. Understanding the composition and spatial organization of the tumour immune microenvironment (TME) is crucial to explaining the diverse prognoses of lung cancer patients.
In this study, we investigated the TME using imaging-based single-cell spatial proteomics. We developed a 38-antibody panel for the multiplexed ion beam imaging (MIBI-TOF) platform and performed whole transcriptome analysis of tumour cells using the Nanostring GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiling (DSP) technology.
Our spatial multi-omics analyses reveal that LUAD and LUSC, the two main NSCLC subtypes, have distinct TMEs. Notably, neutrophil-enriched tumours are associated with worse survival. We identified a novel T cell subset that, when accumulating in the tumour core, is associated with prolonged patient survival. Our findings demonstrate that innate immune cells influence adaptive immune cell activity, supporting the deployment of discrete T cell populations with anti-tumour activity.