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World J Gastrointest Oncol. May 15, 2026; 18(5): 116163
Published online May 15, 2026. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v18.i5.116163
Published online May 15, 2026. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v18.i5.116163
ELF3 emerges as a novel prognostic indicator implicated in gastric cancer progression and correlated with unfavorable clinical outcomes
Zong-Sheng Sun, Chang-Lei Li, Han-Hui Jing, Zheng-Zhao Wang, Long-Bo Zheng, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao 266000, Shandong Province, China
Author contributions: Sun ZS did conceptualization, formal analysis, and wrote original draft; Sun ZS, Li CL, Jing HH, and Zheng LB contributed to investigation and methodology; Li CL, Jing HH, Wang ZZ, and Zheng LB contributed to review and editing; all authors contributed to data curation, validation, and have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. The data can be found here: UALCAN (http://ualcan.path.uab.edu/); the HPA database (http://www.proteinatlas.org/); the GEPIA (http://gepia.cancer-pku.cn/index.html); Kaplan-Meier Plotter online database (https://kmplot.com/analysis/); the TIMER (https://cistrome.shinyapps.io/timer/); TISIDB (http://cis.hku.hk/TISIDB/index.php); TISCH (http://tisch.comp-genomics.org/). The non-public database related data of this study were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University or corresponding author.
Corresponding author: Long-Bo Zheng, MD, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, No. 1677 Wutai Street, Huangdao District, Qingdao 266000, Shandong Province, China.
Received: November 6, 2025
Revised: December 18, 2025
Accepted: February 9, 2026
Published online: May 15, 2026
Processing time: 191 Days and 17.3 Hours
Revised: December 18, 2025
Accepted: February 9, 2026
Published online: May 15, 2026
Processing time: 191 Days and 17.3 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: E74-like ETS transcription factor 3 (ELF3) is an epithelial transcription factor whose role in stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) has been unclear. Integrating multi-database analyses with a 100-patient clinical cohort, we show that ELF3 is upregulated in STAD, independently predicts survival, and associates with immune-cell and chemokine infiltration. High ELF3 expression co-occurs with an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, suggesting a mechanism for disease pro