UGT1A Gene Family Members Serve as Potential Targets and Prognostic Biomarkers for Pancreatic Cancer

BACKGROUND: Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide, with high mortality. The UGT1A gene family plays important roles in pharmacology and toxicology, contributing to interindividual differences in drug disposition. However, mRNA expression and prognostic value of the UGT1A gene family in PC have not been identified. METHODS: Oncomine, GEPIA2, DAVID 6.8, Metascape, Kaplan-Meier plotter, cBioPortal, GeneMANIA, TRRUST v2, TIMER, and R software were used in our study. RESULTS: The transcriptional levels of UGT1A1/3/6/8/9/10 in PC tissues were significantly higher than those in normal tissues. These results were further validated using five pairs of PC tumor tissues and adjacent nontumor tissues. A significant correlation was found between the expression of UGT1A1/6/10 and the pathological stage of PC. PC patients with lower transcriptional levels of UGT1A1/4/5/6/10 were associated with a better prognosis. The differentially expressed UGT1A gene family functions were primarily related to the glucuronidation pathway, cytokine-cytokine receptor interactions, and the ILK signaling pathway. Our data suggest that HNF1A, AHR, and CDX2 are key transcription factors for the UGT1A gene family. Furthermore, the expression levels of UGT1A1/3/8/9/10 were positively correlated with the activities of tumor-infiltrating immune cells, especially B cells. The expression levels of UGT1A6/9 were negatively correlated with macrophage infiltration levels. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that the UGT1A gene family could serve as a potential prognostic biomarker and target for PC. However, future studies are required to validate our findings and promote the clinical utility of the UGT1A gene family in PC.