Integrins are a group of heterodimers consisting of α and β subunits that mediate a variety of physiological activities of immune cells, including cell migration, adhesion, proliferation, survival, and immunotolerance. Multiple types of integrins act differently on the same immune cells, while the same integrin may exert various effects on different immune cells. In the development of cancer, integrins are involved in the regulation of cancer cell proliferation, invasion, migration, and angiogenesis; conversely, integrins promote immune cell aggregation to mediate the elimination of tumors. The important roles of integrins in cancer progression have provided valuable clues for the diagnosis and targeted treatment of cancer. Furthermore, many integrin inhibitors have been investigated in clinical trials to explore effective regimens and reduce side effects. Due to the complexity of the mechanism of integrin-mediated cancer progression, challenges remain in the research and development of cancer immunotherapies (CITs). This review enumerates the effects of integrins on four types of immune cells and the potential mechanisms involved in the progression of cancer, which will provide ideas for more optimal CIT in the future.

Chemokine receptor 7 (CCR7), a member of the CCR family genes, encodes CCR to bind chemokines and exert multiple types of biological processes. It has been evident that CCR7 can play a crucial role in cancer development and progression. Our study has investigated the value of CCR7 expression in the diagnosis and prognosis and immunological signatures of CCR7. Through the utilization of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), Genotype-Tissue Expression Project (GTEx), The Human Protein Atlas (HPA), TIMER, TISIDB, GSEA, GeneMANIA, The Cancer single-cell state Atlas (CancerSEA), UALCAN, Shiny Methylation Analysis Resource Tool (SMART), MethSurv, and cBioPortal database, we used bioinformatics methods to conduct pan-cancer analysis, including differential expression, clinical evaluation, tumor microenvironment (TME) and immune-related analysis, GSEA, functional association analysis, DNA mutation and methylation level, and microsatellite instability (MSI) and tumor mutation burden (TMB). Our results showed that the expression of CCR7 showed significant differentiation between tumor tissues and normal tissues. CCR7 had the potential to be a biomarker in the diagnosis and prognosis of patients. Moreover, the CCR7 expression was closely associated with immune cell infiltration, immune-related genes, TMB, MSI, and DNA mutation. Through GSEA, it was revealed that CCR7 had a strong correlation with multiple immunological functions. Overall, we testified that CCR7 could be a novel tool for the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer patients. Moreover, the correlation between CCR7 and TME and immunological processes elucidated the value of CCR7 as a target in cancer immunotherapy.