{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,10]],"date-time":"2026-08-10T04:30:53Z","timestamp":1786336253422,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":48,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,10]],"date-time":"2026-08-10T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1786320000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Oncol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Introduction<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>AI assisted computed higher tumor infiltrating lymphocyte% (TIL%) scores from hematoxylin and eosin (H&amp;amp;E) stained whole slide images (WSI) may serve as a useful biomarker for stratifying patients for treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>To test the hypothesis that self-identified African ancestry (AA) vs. European ancestry (EA) was associated with higher TIL% scores, WSI were assembled from three diverse cohorts of formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) colon and rectal adenocarcinoma (COAD-READ) tumor tissues: 1.) 242 AA vs. EA WSI downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)-COAD-READ database; 2.) 97 independent US self-identified AA vs. EA WSI assembled from three US medical centers; 3.) 48 (of 51) Nigerian WSI assembled from a single Nigerian medical center. There were 33 self-identified AA WSI suitable for analysis in the TCGA cohort and 49 self-identified AA WSI in the US cohort. For the TCGA cohort, 241 whole transcriptome RNA-sequence data were generated from parallel frozen tumor samples collected alongside the FFPE samples. For the US cohort, 87 RNA-seq enriched by exome capture data were generated from the same FFPE blocks as WSI.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>No difference in median TIL% scores was detected between the combined TCGA and US AA cohorts and the Nigerian cohort. Exploratory multiple regression analysis of the combined TCGA and US cohorts revealed that AA had a higher TIL% score (Estimated difference = 3.01%, 95% CI (0.54%, 5.49%), P-value = 0.0170), while controlling for MMR\/MSI status and other covariates. However, this result needs to be interpreted with caution because of differences between the TCGA and US cohorts with respect to representation of self-identified AA. After adjustment for cohort in the model, the association of AA with a higher TIL% score was no longer significant (Estimated difference = 2.05%, 95% CI(-0.59%, 4.70%), P-value = 0.1277). Moderate correlations were detected in the TCGA and US cohorts analyzed separately between computed TIL% scores and CIBERSORTx estimates of lymphocyte and T-cell abundance. Moderate correlations were also detected between TIL% scores and CXCL10 and CCL5 gene expression values.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>These preliminary results underscore the need for expanding the representation of minority populations in publicly accessible datasets.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fonc.2026.1855135","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,10]],"date-time":"2026-08-10T04:21:35Z","timestamp":1786335695000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Self-identified African ancestry and pathomics-derived tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte scores in colon and rectal adenocarcinoma whole-slide images: an exploratory multicohort whole-slide image 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