The Immune Profile of Pituitary Adenomas and a Novel Immune Classification for Predicting Immunotherapy Responsiveness

Abstract

Abstract Context The tumor immune microenvironment is associated with clinical outcomes and immunotherapy responsiveness. Objective To investigate the intratumoral immune profile of pituitary adenomas (PAs) and its clinical relevance and to explore a novel immune classification for predicting immunotherapy responsiveness. Design, Patients, and Methods The transcriptomic data from 259 PAs and 20 normal pituitaries were included for analysis. The ImmuCellAI algorithm was used to estimate the abundance of 24 types of tumor-infiltrating immune cells (TIICs) and the expression of immune checkpoint molecules (ICMs). Results The distributions of TIICs differed between PAs and normal pituitaries and varied among PA subtypes. T cells dominated the immune microenvironment across all subtypes of PAs. The tumor size and patient age were correlated with the TIIC abundance, and the ubiquitin-specific protease 8 (USP8) mutation in corticotroph adenomas influenced the intratumoral TIIC distributions. Three immune clusters were identified across PAs based on the TIIC distributions. Each cluster of PAs showed unique features of ICM expression that were correlated with distinct pathways related to tumor development and progression. CTLA4/CD86 expression was upregulated in cluster 1, whereas programmed cell death protein 1/programmed cell death 1 ligand 2 (PD1/PD-L2) expression was upregulated in cluster 2. Clusters 1 and 2 exhibited a “hot” immune microenvironment and were predicted to exhibit higher immunotherapy responsiveness than cluster 3, which exhibited an overall “cold” immune microenvironment. Conclusions We summarized the immune profile of PAs and identified 3 novel immune clusters. These findings establish a foundation for further immune studies on PAs and provide new insights into immunotherapy strategies for PAs.