VGLL3 is a prognostic biomarker and correlated with clinical pathologic features and immune infiltrates in stomach adenocarcinoma

Due to its poor clinical outcome, there is an urgent need to identify novel prognostic markers for stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD). Here, we aimed to explore the relationship between VGLL3 expression and clinico-pathological features, dendritic cells, macrophages, and prognosis of STAD. VGLL3 expression levels were significantly associated with histological grade, T stage, and TNM stage. VGLL3 levels and patient’s age were also independent prognostic factors of the clinical outcome of STAD. In addition, VGLL3 was associated with the abundance of macrophages and dendritic cells in tumor infiltrates, of which only VGLL3 and macrophage counts were the independent prognostic factors of immune cell infiltration in the TIMER Database. Extracellular matrix receptor interaction, focal adhesion, pathways in cancer, MAPK, JAK STAT, and WNT signaling pathways were enriched in VGLL3 high-expressing datasets as determined by Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA), while DNA replication, glyoxylate, and dicarboxylate metabolism, glutathione metabolism, homologous recombination, and glycosylphosphatidylinositol gpi banchor biosynthesis were enriched in VGLL3 low-expressing datasets. Thus, VGLL3 is a novel prognostic biomarker of both the clinical outcome and immune infiltration in STAD, and may therefore be a promising therapeutic target.