When we assessed PD-L1 expression, which is known to be upregulated upon IFN stimulation34 and serves as a biomarker for patient stratification for anti-PD1 immunotherapy3, we found that both messenger RNA (mRNA) and protein levels of PD-L1 were heterogeneous among different tumor loci and did not correlate with local TMB (Fig. 2g and Supplementary Fig. 8). This evidence concerns the gene PDCD1 and neoplasm.