ZNF521 Is Correlated with Tumor Immune Cell Infiltration and Act as a Valuable Prognostic Biomarker in Gastric Cancer

AIM: To explore the correlations between the expression of zinc finger protein 521 (ZNF521) with immune invasion and prognosis of gastric cancer. METHODS: Expression of ZNF521 was examined by immunohistochemistry in gastric cancer cases. Kaplan–Meier plotter was used to determine the relationships between ZNF521 and prognosis. TIMER and GEPIA were used to analyze the correlation between ZNF521 expression and gene markers of immune cell infiltration. RESULTS: The expression of ZNF521 was up-regulated in gastric cancer samples. Kaplan–Meier analysis indicated that higher expression of ZNF521 was associated with poor prognosis. The expression of ZNF521 was correlated with infiltrating levels of CD4+ T and CD8+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells in gastric cancer, which also correlated with diverse immune marker sets. CONCLUSIONS: ZNF521 is correlated significantly with immune cell infiltration and is a valuable biomarker for prognosis in gastric cancer.