Gene expression
Is ITGAL a gastric-cancer immune biomarker?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
ITGAL mRNA is higher in 408 GC vs 211 normal samples (AUC 0.798), tracks CD8/macrophage infiltrates and PD1, and worse OS on KM plotter (HR 1.25 and 1.47) across 1,065 tumors.
How this study connects
Role on claims
Each row is a claim on a concept or method page where this paper supports, challenges, or qualifies the statement. Roles are hand-checked — not a model guess.
Both markers track immune infiltration, which is what a single-gene score is often measuring.
Single genes recur as prognostic markers across cancers. CDK2 showed highly significant prognostic value in lung adenocarcinoma (P = 5.8e-15) with higher tumour than normal expression and stage and survival links across a pan-cancer analysis; ITGAL discriminated gastric cancer with AUC 0.798 and correlated with CD8 T-cell infiltration (rho = 0.732).
Evidence for the claim as stated.
What counts as validation differs sharply across this literature. The immune aging clocks report internal and external validation on independent data, while the single-gene cancer markers are assessed within the same public repositories used to select them — so the reported AUCs and hazard ratios are not measuring the same property.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Open questions
Tensions this paper is part of
From concept pages' “where studies disagree.” Disagreement means the same question; scope means different assays, populations, or outcomes.
What counts as validation differs sharply across this literature. The immune aging clocks report internal and external validation on independent data, while the single-gene cancer markers are assessed within the same public repositories used to select them — so the reported AUCs and hazard ratios are not measuring the same property.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Computational / modelling — TCGA/GEPIA/TIMER/UALCAN/KM-plotter/TISIDB of ITGAL in gastric cancer plus IHC, qRT-PCR, and Western blot on 10 paired tumors
- N
- N=1065 · KM plotter 1,065 GC samples (mean follow-up 33 months); GEPIA 408 tumors vs 211 normals; 10 paired tissues for qPCR/WB; TCGA matched n=27
- Population
- Stomach adenocarcinoma bulk transcriptomes (TCGA/GTEx) and 10 paired gastric-cancer surgical tissues
- Outcome
- ITGAL expression vs stage/nodes, ROC AUC, overall survival HRs, and immune-infiltrate correlations including PD1
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
Inspect source passages
Is ITGAL a gastric-cancer immune biomarker?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
GEPIA compared 408 GC cases with 211 healthy samples.
ITGAL mRNA was substantially greater in GC samples (408 cases) than that in healthy samples (211cases) ( p < 0.05) from TCGA
ITGAL ROC AUC was 0.798 (0.762–0.833).
AUC was 0.798 (95% CI 0.762–0.833) for ITGAL in GC
Key findings
ITGAL was higher in GC (GEPIA p<0.05; UALCAN p=0.0015), rose with stage/nodes, discriminated GC with AUC 0.798, correlated with CD8 T cells (rho=0.732) and lower purity, and worse OS (HR 1.25 and 1.47 on two probes).
Methodology
Mined TIMER, GEPIA, UALCAN, KM plotter (1,065 GC cases), and TISIDB for ITGAL vs clinicopathology and 28 TIL types, then checked 10 paired tumors by qRT-PCR/Western blot and IHC including PD1.
Limitations
Bulk correlation is not proof that ITGAL causes immune exhaustion or that targeting it would help patients; KM plotter HRs vary by stage, and the wet-lab N is only 10 pairs.
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