Glioblastoma, the most aggressive primary brain tumour, has high levels of intratumoral and interpatient heterogeneity, a deeper understanding of which could aid the development of therapeutic strategies for this incurable disease. In a recent study in Cell, Kloosterman, Erbani et al. investigate the heterogeneity of the glioblastoma tumour microenvironment (TME), particularly of tumour-associated macrophages (TAMs), and report a lipid-mediated, metabolic crosstalk between TAMs and glioblastoma cells that supports tumour growth.

scRNA-seq analysis further showed that both microglial and monocyte-derived TAMs in mouse glioblastoma could be segregated into four main phenotypes of pre-activated, inflammatory, metabolically active and proliferating states.