Fig. 7: CAD is upregulated and negatively correlates with prognosis, radiotherapy response and CD8⁺ cell infiltration in CRC.

A The expression profile of CAD across human cancers determined by the GEPIA website (http://gepia.cancer-pku.cn/about.html). B The expression of CAD in TCGA_COAD and TCGA_READ samples. C Kaplan–Meier analysis of overall survival (OS) in CRC patients from GEO/GSE106584 dataset. D, E Representative images (D) and quantification (E) of IHC staining for CAD in rectal cancer tissues from radiotherapy non-response (Non-Responder) and response (Responder) patients. Scale bars, 100 μm. F, G Correlation analyses between CAD expression and Immune score from the TCGA-CRC dataset (F) and GEO/GSE71187 dataset (G). p and r values were calculated by Pearson’s correlation test. H Correlation analyses between CAD expression and CD8⁺ T cells abundance of TCGA_COAD and TCGA_READ samples on TSIDB platform (http://cis.hku.hk/TISIDB/index.php). p and r values were calculated using Spearman correlation test. I, J Representative images (I) and quantification (J) of IHC staining of CD8 in rectal cancer tissues. Scale bars, 100 μm. K Correlation between the percent of CAD⁺ cells and that of CD8⁺ cells detected by IHC staining. P values were determined using Mann–Whitney test (B), Kaplan–Meier method with log-rank test (C), unpaired t-test (E and J) or f-test (K). *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001.