CXCL12 and gastric cancer: The correlation of these markers with the CAF infiltration was even higher than that of poor prognostic CAF signature genes recently identified in gastric cancer: THBS1, THBS2, INHBA (inhibin A), CXCL12 (C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 12), TGFB2 (transforming growth factor-beta 2), VEGFB (vascular endothelial growth factor B), COL10A1 (collagen type X alpha 1 chain), AREG (amphiregulin) and EFNA5 (ephrin A5) (Additional file 2: Fig. S2) [8, 32, 33].