Comparable to tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells, high PRELP expression in SKCM was correlated with an increased number of tumor-infiltrating monocytes (HR = − 3.077; p = 5.87E-03 and HR = − 2.832; p = 1.59E−02), macrophages (HR = − 3.934; p = 3.01E−04 and HR = -3.46; p = 2.23E−03), myeloid dendritic cells (HR = − 2.619; p = 2.30E−02 and HR = − 2.375; p = 5.47E−02) in both skin cutaneous and metastatic melanoma datasets (Additional file 1: Table S4). Here, CD8A is linked to metastatic melanoma.