Transcriptome-derived stromal and immune scores infer clinical outcomes of patients with cancer

The stromal and immune cells that form the tumor microenvironment serve a key role in the aggressiveness of tumors. Current tumor-centric interpretations of cancer transcriptome data ignore the roles of stromal and immune cells. The aim of the present study was to investigate the clinical utility of stromal and immune cells in tissue-based transcriptome data. The 'Estimation of STromal and Immune cells in MAlignant Tumor tissues using Expression data' (ESTIMATE) algorithm was used to probe diverse cancer datasets and the fraction of stromal and immune cells in tumor tissues was scored. The association between the ESTIMATE scores and patient survival data was asessed; it was indicated that the two scores have implications for patient survival, metastasis and recurrence. Analysis of a colorectal cancer progression dataset revealed that decreased levels immune cells could serve an important role in cancer progression. The results of the present study indicated that trasncriptome-derived stromal and immune scores may be a useful indicator of cancer prognosis.