Glioma associated macrophages are functionally and transcriptionally distinct from tumour microglia in a mouse model of glioblastoma

We characterised tumour macrophages and tumour microglia using flow cytometry. We subsequently isolated tumour macrophages and tumour microglia, using flow-cell sorting in a mouse glioblastoma model and performed RNA-sequencing to identify: unique cell surface markers, upregulation of pro or anti-inflammatory genes and important functional pathways to overall determine the functional roles of tumour macrophages and tumour microglia. Immunocompetent chimeric mice implanted with syngeneic murine GBM GL-261 cells, flow-cell sorted into 3 tumour populations: tumour differentiated macrophages, tumour undifferentiated macrophages and tumour microglia. A fourth population, normal microglia, was sampled from normal wild-type mice with no tumour.