CD93 serves as a potential biomarker of gastric cancer and correlates with the tumor microenvironment

Background: The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays an important role in the growth and expansion of gastric cancer (GC). Studies have identified that CD93 is involved in abnormal tumor angiogenesis, which may be related to the regulation of the TME.

Aim: To determine the role of CD93 in GC.

Methods: Transcriptomic data of GC was investigated in a cohort from The Cancer Genome Atlas. Additionally, RNA-seq data sets from Gene Expression Omnibus (GSE118916, GSE52138, GSE79973, GSE19826, and GSE84433) were applied to validate the results. We performed the immune infiltration analyses using ESTIMATE, CIBERSORT, and ssGSEA. Furthermore, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was conducted to identify the immune-related genes.

Results: Compared to normal tissues, CD93 significantly enriched in tumor tissues (t = 4.669, 95%CI: 0.342-0.863, P < 0.001). Higher expression of CD93 was significantly associated with shorter overall survival (hazard ratio = 1.62, 95%CI: 1.09-2.4, P = 0.017), less proportion of CD8 T and activated natural killer cells in the TME (P < 0.05), and lower tumor mutation burden (t = 4.131, 95%CI: 0.721-0.256, P < 0.001). Genes co-expressed with CD93 were mainly enriched in angiogenesis. Moreover, 11 genes were identified with a strong relationship between CD93 and the immune microenvironment using WGCNA.

Conclusion: CD93 is a novel prognostic and diagnostic biomarker for GC, that is closely related to the immune infiltration in the TME. Although this retrospective study was a comprehensive analysis, the prospective cohort studies are preferred to further confirm these conclusions.