PDCD1 and cancer: Next, we evaluated potential biological functions associated with these canonical caspases, granzyme proteases and GSDMs in a one-step protein-protein interaction network, which revealed that these regulators were predominantly involved in the regulation of the immune response, such as the NOD-like receptor signaling pathway and PD-L1 and PD-1 checkpoint pathway in cancer, and the regulation of stromal and carcinogenic activation, including TNF signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway and p53 signaling pathway (Figure 1B).