TIMER: A Web Server for Comprehensive Analysis of Tumor-Infiltrating Immune Cells

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Immunology
• Bioinformatics

Background:

• Cancer immunotherapy has shown clinical success, highlighting the need to understand tumor-immune system interactions.
• Investigating these complex interactions faces significant computational and experimental hurdles.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce the Tumor Immune Estimation Resource (TIMER), a web-based platform for comprehensive analysis of tumor-immune interactions.
• To provide researchers with a tool for exploring molecular characteristics of the tumor microenvironment.

Main Methods:

• TIMER precalculates immune cell infiltration levels for 10,897 tumors across 32 cancer types.
• The platform offers six analytical modules for interactive exploration of data.
• Associations between immune infiltrates and gene expression, clinical outcomes, somatic mutations, and copy number alterations are analyzed.

Main Results:

• TIMER provides precalculated immune subset levels for a large cohort of cancer patients.
• The resource facilitates the exploration of relationships between immune infiltrates and various molecular and clinical factors.
• A user-friendly web interface enables dynamic analysis and visualization.

Conclusions:

• TIMER is a valuable, broadly applicable resource for cancer researchers.
• The platform simplifies the investigation of complex tumor-immune interactions.
• TIMER supports data-driven hypothesis generation in cancer immunology and precision oncology.