The clinical use of molecular targeted therapy is rapidly evolving but has primarily focused on genomic alterations. Transcriptomic analysis offers an opportunity to dissect the complexity of tumors, including the tumor microenvironment (TME), a crucial mediator of cancer progression and therapeutic outcome. TME classification by transcriptomic analysis of >10,000 cancer patients identifies four distinct TME subtypes conserved across 20 different cancers. The TME subtypes correlate with patient response to immunotherapy in multiple cancers, with patients possessing immune-favorable TME subtypes benefiting the most from immunotherapy. Thus, the TME subtypes act as a generalized immunotherapy biomarker across many cancer types due to the inclusion of malignant and microenvironment components. A visual tool integrating transcriptomic and genomic data provides a global tumor portrait, describing the tumor framework, mutational load, immune composition, anti-tumor immunity, and immunosuppressive escape mechanisms. Integrative analyses plus visualization may aid in biomarker discovery and the personalization of therapeutic regimens.

该研究开发了一个可视化的肿瘤患者微环境转录组数据平台，通过识别细胞群体、信号通路、肿瘤微环境发展过程和癌细胞特性定义不同功能基因的集和，对不同肿瘤微环境进行分类。以描述肿瘤及其肿瘤微环境的全面特征并用于预测免疫治疗的响应。