As expected, these patients had higher expression levels of TREM2, SPP1, APOE, C1QA, C1QB, and C1QC. Similarly, nine inhibitor receptors representing Tex were upregulated in the High abundance group, suggesting that high TREM2+ TAMs enrichment was associated with Tex in the ESCC cohort, consistent with our scRNA-seq analysis results. This evidence concerns the gene APOE and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.