Fig. 1: CST1 is up-regulated in primary and metastatic GC tissues and is associated with a poor prognosis.

Heatmap mainly showing expression levels of 20 up-regulated and 20 down-regulated different expressed genes in primary GC (A) and metastatic GC (C) vs. adjacent normal tissues (>1.5-fold). Volcano plots with differentially expressed genes in primary GC (B) and metastatic GC (D) vs. adjacent normal tissues. E Venn diagram representation of 768 overlapped up-regulated genes. F Histogram was shown the overlapped highest 20 up-regulated genes in these two clusters. G, H Higher expression of CST1 was found in GC samples than the matched normal tissues (based on GSE54129 and GSE66229 database). I, J Kaplan–Meier plots of overall survival and progression-free survival for GC samples from the KM Ploter database. K RT-qPCR analysis of CST1 mRNA expression in 100 pairs of GC patient samples. Data are shown as the mean ± SD of triplicate independent sets of experiments; statistical significance was assessed by paired t-test, *<0.05, n = 100. L Western blot analysis was performed using an antibody against CST1 in 5 pairs of GC patients’ samples (upper panel); protein band intensities were measured by ImageJ software and normalized to GAPDH (lower panel). M IHC staining was performed using an antibody against CST1 and representative photographs of CST1 in GC patients. Scale bar: 100 μm. N IHC stain scoring of CST1 in 185 GC tissues and 185 normal tissues, statistical significance was assessed by unpaired t-test, ****<0.0001.