Identification of potential crucial genes associated with the pathogenesis and prognosis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) is a type of malignant tumor with the highest mortality rate among all neoplasms worldwide, and its exact pathogenesis is still poorly understood. Timely diagnosis and treatment are of great importance in order to decrease the mortality rate of PAAD. Therefore, identifying new biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis is essential to enable early detection of PAAD and to improve the overall survival (OS) rate. In order to screen and integrate differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between PAAD and normal tissues, a total of seven datasets were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database and the ‘limma’ and ‘robustrankggreg’ packages in R software were used. The Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis of the DEGs was performed using the Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery website, and the protein-protein interaction network analysis was performed using the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes/Proteins database. A gene prognostic signature was constructed using the Cox regression model. A total of 10 genes (CDK1, CCNB1, CDC20, ASPM, UBE2C, TPX2, TOP2A, NUSAP1, KIF20A and DLGAP5) that may be associated with pancreatic adenocarcinoma were identified. According to the differentially expressed genes in The Cancer Genome Atlas, the present study set up four prognostic signatures (matrix metalloproteinase 12, sodium voltage-gated channel α subunit 11, tetraspanin 1 and SH3 domain and tetratricopeptide repeats-containing 2), which effectively predicted OS. The hub genes that were highly associated with the occurrence, development and prognosis of PAAD were identified, which may be helpful to further understand the molecular basis of pancreatic cancer and guide the synthesis of drugs for PPAD.