Macrophage-instructed GSDME couples glioblastoma cell-state plasticity with inflammatory cell death

Abstract

Glioblastoma (GBM) cell states reflect spatial microenvironmental interactions. Here, using COMET spatial proteomics and RNAscope across multiregional human GBM tissue, spanning tumor cores with pseudopalisading regions, infiltrative margins and peripheral regions, together with multiplex spatial profiling of 202 specimens from 33 patients with matched primary and recurrent tumors, we identify full-length gasdermin E (GSDME-FL) as a macrophage-instructed regulator of malignant cell plasticity. Integration with single-cell transcriptomics and functional perturbation shows that GSDME-high tumor cells localize to macrophage-rich perivascular niches and are associated with delayed recurrence and longer patient survival. Mechanistically, macrophage-derived S100A4 activates EGFR-Sp1 signaling to induce GSDME-FL in neighboring GBM cells. GSDME-FL restrains hypoxia-associated mesenchymal plasticity and shapes macrophage-induced tumor state transitions independently of caspase activation. During immunogenic cell death (ICD), cleaved GSDME promotes pre-lytic swelling, early ATP efflux, and the release of canonical ICD-associated cytokines and chemokines. NLRP3 signaling further supports ATP release and licenses macrophage phagocytosis of dying GBM cells, whereas NINJ1-dependent membrane rupture enables terminal HMGB1 release. Vaccination with ICD-treated glioma cells elicits tumor rejection in a prophylactic intracranial challenge model. Notably, co-expression of GSDME and NINJ1 in macrophage-rich perivascular niches provides a spatial correlate of pathway convergence in patient tumors. Thus, our findings define how a spatial macrophage niche induces GSDME-FL, thereby coupling malignant cell state plasticity to the inflammatory properties of GBM cell death.