Comprehensive analysis of the prognosis and immune infiltration for CXC chemokines in colorectal cancer

The C-X-C motif (CXC) chemokines are a family of chemotactic molecules that have been identified as potential prognostic markers and prospective therapeutic targets for many kinds of cancer types. Increasing evidence shows that CXC chemokines are associated with the progression of colorectal cancer (CRC); however, the correlations of CXC chemokines with prognostic and immune infiltrates in CRC remain to be clarified. In this study, we analyzed the mRNA expression level, prognostic data and immune infiltrates of CXC chemokines in CRC patients from the Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis, Oncomine, cBioPortal and databases using GeneMANIA, STRING, DAVID 6.8, and TIMER. Our results showed that CXCL1/2/3/4/5/8/9/10/11/13/14/16 were significantly overexpressed in CRC tissues. Furthermore, expression of CXCL1/2/3/9/10/11 was associated with tumor stage in CRC. A significant association was also identified between the co-expression of CXCL16 with EGFR, KRAS and NRAS. In addition, the survival analysis suggested that high CXCL2/3/8/9/10/11/14 expression is correlated with clinical outcomes of CRC patients. Moreover, a significant association was observed between the CXCL8/9/10/11 expression and immune infiltration in colonic and rectal adenocarcinoma. Overall, CXC chemokines are not only implicated as prognostic biomarkers for CRC patients, but may also influence the immune status of CRC tissues.