In our study, the median percentage of PD-1+ Tim-3+ cells among CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells in GC patients were also significantly higher than that in HDs (2.34% vs. 1.2%, p = 0.0121, Fig. 3d for CD4+; 1.45% vs. 0.98%, p = 0.0441, Additional file 2: Figure S2D for CD8+). Here, HAVCR2 is linked to gastric cancer.