Identification of immune cells and mRNA associated with prognosis of gastric cancer

Background The clinical success demonstrates the enormous potential of immunotherapy in cancer treatment. Methods This article presented research linking gastric cancer to immune cells, based on RNA-seq data of Stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) and gene expression profile of GSE84437, 24 kinds of tumor-infiltrating immune cells were quantified by single-sample gene set enrichment analysis. Results Th2 cells, T helper cells, and Mast cells were identified as prognostic immune cells in both TCGA and GEO groups. Then SUPV3L1 and SLC22A17 were identified as hub genes which may affect immune cell infiltration by correlation analysis. Survival analysis further proved that hub genes and prognostic immune cells are associated with the prognosis of gastric cancer. In gastrointestinal tumors, hub genes and prognostic immune cells also found differences in non-tumor and tumor tissues. Conclusions We found that three immune cells infiltration are associated with the prognosis of gastric cancer and further identify two hub genes. These two key genes may affect immune cell infiltration, result in the different prognosis of patients.