Fig. 3

Expression and functional analysis of hub genes in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCA) using TCGA-ESCA datasets. (A) Expression validation of the hub genes COL3A1, COL4A1, COL5A2, and CXCL8 in ESCA tumor tissues and normal tissues using the GSCA database. (B) Analysis of mRNA expression levels of the hub genes across different ESCA pathological stages. (C) Clinical staging analysis of the hub genes’ expression. (D) Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) showing the association of COL3A1, COL4A1, COL5A2, and CXCL8 with oncogenic pathways and gene sets enriched in ESCA. P-value < 0.05