Fig. 1

Correlation of immune cell infiltration and clinical outcome. a Immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining and multi-color immunofluorescence (IF) staining for CD8+ T cells infiltrating in parenchyma or mesenchyme or both (×200). b Overall survival of patients grouped by different CD8+ T cells infiltrating status. Less than 1% CD8+ T cells infiltrating in parenchyma and meanwhile less than 10% CD8+ T cells infiltrating in mesenchyme were defined as a poor infiltration; the others were regarded as a rich infiltration. c IHC staining and multi-color IF staining for FOXP3+ T cells (× 200). d Overall survival of patients grouped by different FOXP3+ T cells infiltrating status. e IHC staining and multi-color IF staining for CD33+ myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSC) (× 200). f Overall survival of patients grouped by different CD33+ MDSC infiltrating status. g The correlation between the score of IHC staining and the automatic counting results of IF. h Representative IF images (× 200) of three different status of immune cell infiltration in the tumor microenvironment (TME). The more infiltration of immune effective cells was regarded as activated TME, the more infiltration of immune suppressive cells was defined as inhibitory TME, whereas the balanced infiltration of immune cells was considered as equilibrium. i Overall survival of patients grouped by different TME status. CD8 in white, FOXP3 in red, CD33 in orange and CK in green for multi-color IF staining. TIL, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes