Tumor IMmune Estimation Resource (TIMER)

TIMER2.0 is a comprehensive resource for the systematic analysis of immune infiltrates across different cancer types from TCGA (http://timer.cistrome.org/) [13, 14]. We identified the association between CXCL2/3/8/9/10/11/14 expression in COAD and READ and the abundances of six immune infiltrates, including CD4⁺ T cells, CD8⁺ T cells, B cells, macrophages, dendritic cells (DCs), and neutrophils. TIMER2.0 generates a heatmap table of the Spearman’s correlations between the expression of CXCL2/3/8/9/10/11/14 and the abundance of immune cell type as well as its subtypes across COAD and READ. Moreover, correlations between genetic markers of tumor-infiltrating immune cells and CXCL2/3/8/9/10/11/14 expression were evaluated using correlation modules (Gene_Corr). According to TIMER2.0, the positive correlation is defined as P < 0.05, rho > 0; the negative correlation is defined as P < 0.05, rho < 0; not significant is defined as P ≥ 0.05.