With the presence of TILs in tumor parenchyma, cancer-immune phenotypes can be described and divided into an immune-inflamed phenotype, an immune-desert phenotype and an immune-excluded phenotype, which is closely related with the therapeutic response to immunotherapies such as anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy (Fig. 1c-e) [35, 36]. The gene discussed is PDCD1; the disease is cancer.