Recently, the possibility of using immune gene signatures (IGSs) has been considered as a novel prognostic tool for numerous cancer types. State-of-the-art methods of genomic, transcriptomic, and protein analysis have allowed the identification of a number of immune signatures correlated to disease outcome. The major adaptive and innate immune components are the T lymphocytes and macrophages, respectively. Herein, we collected essential data on IGSs consisting of subsets of T cells and tumor-associated macrophages and indicating cancer patient outcomes. We discuss factors that can introduce errors in the recognition of immune cell types and explain why the significance of immune signatures can be interpreted with uncertainty. The unidirectional functions of cell types should be entirely addressed in the signatures constructed by the combination of innate and adaptive immune cells. The state of the antitumor immune response is the key basis for IGSs and should be considered in gene signature construction. We also analyzed immune signatures for the prediction of immunotherapy response. Finally, we attempted to explain the present-day limitations in the use of immune signatures as robust criteria for prognosis.

中文翻译：

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免疫基因特征作为癌症患者的预后标准。

最近，使用免疫基因特征（IGS）的可能性已被认为是多种癌症类型的新型预后工具。最先进的基因组、转录组和蛋白质分析方法已经能够鉴定与疾病结果相关的许多免疫特征。主要的适应性和先天免疫成分分别是 T 淋巴细胞和巨噬细胞。在此，我们收集了由 T 细胞亚群和肿瘤相关巨噬细胞组成的 IGS 的基本数据，并表明癌症患者的预后。我们讨论了可能在免疫细胞类型识别中引入错误的因素，并解释了为什么免疫特征的重要性可以被不确定地解释。细胞类型的单向功能应该在由先天性免疫细胞和适应性免疫细胞组合构建的特征中得到完全解决。抗肿瘤免疫反应的状态是 IGS 的关键基础，在基因签名构建中应予以考虑。我们还分析了免疫特征以预测免疫治疗反应。最后，我们试图解释目前使用免疫特征作为预后稳健标准的局限性。