Single cell profiling of cerebral immune cells in the Interleukin-33 (IL-33) driven tumor microenvironment

IL33 is a dual function cytokine which acts as a major orchestrator of the brain tumor microenvironment that contributes to tumorigenesis. We found that IL33 is expressed in a large subset of human glioma patient specimens and murine glioma models and that its expression is directly associated with the increased presence of tumor associated macrophages/monocytes/microglia. We analyzed the differences in the IL-33+ and IL-33- innate immune microenvironments at a single cell resolution and found substantial differences in the immune populations present and gene expression changes which may contribute to the increased tumoirgenicity of IL-33+ tumors. Overall design: We preformed single cell RNA sequencing on immune cells in mice bearing intracranial human glioma U87 tumors overexpressing IL-33 (N=3) or transfected with pcDNA vector control (N=3).