Dysregulation of CCL18/CCR8 axis predicts poor prognosis in patients with gastric cancer

Increasing data have shown that the dysregulation of C-C motif chemokine ligand 18 (CCL18) and C-C motif chemokine receptor (CCR8) is involved in the development and progression of multiple malignancies. However, the clinical significance of CCL18/CCR8 axis in gastric cancer (GC) was still undocumented. In this study, the expression levels of CCL18 and its receptor CCR8 and their correlation with the clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis in patients with GC were analyzed by TCGA RNA sequencing data. Cox proportional hazard regression model was performed to assess the association between CCL18/CCR8 expression and overall survival (OS) and tumor recurrence in patients with GC. As a consequence, we found that the expression of CCL18 was markedly elevated in GC samples as compared with the adjacent normal tissues and acted as an independent prognostic factor of tumor recurrence in patients with GC. Subsequently, Pearson correlation analysis revealed that CCL18 possessed a positive correlation with CCR8 expression in GC samples. CCR8 expression was upregulated in GC tissues and exhibited the association with poor survival in patients with GC. Taken together, our findings demonstrated that the dysregulation of CCL18/CCR8 axis could predict the poor prognosis in patients with GC and provide a potential antitumor target for the treatment of GC.