ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Genet.
Sec. Cancer Genetics and Oncogenomics
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fgene.2025.1602929
VCAM-1 predicts poor prognosis and modulates immune infiltration in gastric cancer: A TCGA-based bioinformatics study
Provisionally accepted
- Ganzhou People's Hospital, Ganzhou, China
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Background: Gastric cancer (GC) is a leading cause of cancer-related mortality; however, biomarkers predicting its immunotherapy resistance remain scarce. Vascular cell adhesion molecule (VCAM)-1, an immune cell adhesion mediator, is implicated in tumor progression; however, its prognostic and immunomodulatory roles in GC remain unclear.In this study, we analyzed VCAM-1 expression and its clinical relevance in GC using RNA-sequencing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Differential gene analysis, gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA), and single-sample GSEA were used to identify the underlying pathways and immune infiltration patterns. Validation was performed via Cox regression, receiver operating characteristic, and immunohistochemical (Human Protein Atlas database) analyses.Results: VCAM-1 expression levels were significantly upregulated in the GC tissues (p < 0.001) and correlated with advanced T stage (p = 0.046), N stage (p = 0.047), and poor overall survival (hazard ratio = 1.54; p = 0.046). GSEA linked VCAM-1 expression to various immune pathways (e.g., interleukin-17 signaling), and single-sample GSEA revealed its positive associations with the Th1, cytotoxic, and CD8 + T cell proportions (p < 0.05) and inverse correlation with the Th17 cell proportion. Immunohistochemistry revealed elevated VCAM-1 protein levels in the tumors.VCAM-1 is a novel prognostic biomarker driving immunosuppressive microenvironmental remodeling in GC. Furthermore, its dual roles in immune regulation highlight its potential to optimize GC immunotherapy.
Keywords: VCAM-1, gastric cancer, prognostic biomarker, Immune infiltration, TCGA database
Received: 30 Mar 2025; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wu, Liu, Liu and Fang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chuanfa Fang, Ganzhou People's Hospital, Ganzhou, China
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