Prognostic and therapeutic value of the Eph/Ephrin signaling pathway in pancreatic cancer explored based on bioinformatics

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most common malignant tumors of the digestive tract and has a very high mortality rate worldwide. Different PC patients may respond differently to therapy and develop therapeutic resistance due to the complexity and variety of the tumor microenvironment. The Eph/ephrin signaling pathway is extensively involved in tumor-related biological functions. However, the key function of the Eph/ephrin signaling pathway in PC has not been fully elucidated. We first explored a pan-cancer overview of Eph/ephrin signaling pathway genes (EPGs). Then we grouped the PC patients into 3 subgroups based on EPG expression levels. Significantly different prognoses and tumor immune microenvironments between different subtypes further validate Eph/ephrin's important role in the pathophysiology of PC. Additionally, we estimated the IC50 values for several commonly used molecularly targeted drugs used to treat PC in the three clusters, which could help patients receive a more personalized treatment plan. Following a progressive screening of optimal genes, we established a prognostic signature and validated it in internal and external test sets. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of our model exhibited great predictive performance. Meanwhile, we further validated the results through qRT-PCR and immunohistochemistry. Overall, this research provides fresh clues on the prognosis and therapy of PC as well as the theoretical groundwork for future Eph/ephrin signaling pathway research.