Fig. 5

Correlation and Functional Enrichment Analysis of MCM8 in ESCA. a Volcano plots with a Pearson correlation coefficient indicating the strength and significance of the relationship between MCM8 and other protein-coding genes within TCGA ESCA dataset. Highlighted are POLR3 F with the highest positive correlation and PLEKHN1 with the most significant negative correlation with MCM8. b, c Heatmaps depicting the top 20 genes with the highest positive and negative correlations with MCM8, respectively. These visualizations provide an overview of the gene expression patterns closely associated with MCM8 levels. d Enrichment analysis of MCM8 co-expressed genes was performed using Gene Ontology (GO) terms and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG)