Deciphering transcriptomic determinants of the divergent link between PD-L1 and immunotherapy efficacy

Programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression remains the most widely used biomarker for predicting response to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), but its predictiveness varies considerably. Identification of factors accounting for the varying PD-L1 performance is urgently needed. Here, using data from three independent trials comprising 1239 patients, we have identified subsets of cancer with distinct PD-L1 predictiveness based on tumor transcriptome. In the Predictiveness-High (PH) group, PD-L1+ tumors show better overall survival, progression-free survival, and objective response rate with ICI than PD-L1- tumors across three trials. However, the Predictiveness-Low (PL) group demonstrates an opposite trend towards better outcomes for PD-L1- tumors. PD-L1+ tumors from the PH group demonstrate the superiority of ICI over chemotherapy, whereas PD-L1+ tumors from the PL group show comparable efficacy between two treatments or exhibit an opposite trend favoring chemotherapy. This observation of context-dependent predictiveness remains strong regardless of immune subtype (Immune-Enriched or Non-Immune), PD-L1 regulation mechanism (adaptative or constitutive), tumor mutation burden, or neoantigen load. This work illuminates avenues for optimizing the use of PD-L1 expression in clinical decision-making and trial design, although this exploratory concept should be further confirmed in large trials.