While neither the expression of IRE1α, ATF6 nor PERK (encoded by ERN1, ATF6 and EIF2AK3 respectively) was not strongly associated with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) score (Additional file 1: Fig. S1A), the activity of IRE1α, reflected by a cluster of gene sets demonstrated in a previous report [23], was prominently correlated with TIL score in melanoma (Fig. 1A). Here, ERN1 is linked to melanoma.