LACTB mRNA expression is increased in pancreatic adenocarcinoma and high expression indicates a poor prognosis.

Abstract

This study aimed to find the prognostic value of Beta-lactamase-like (LACTB) in pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAAD) patients. The mRNA expression of LACTB was upregulated in PAAD and was correlated with vital status (P = 0.0199). The immunoreactive scores of LACTB protein in human PAAD tissues were significantly higher than those in adjacent noncancerous pancreatic tissues. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve assessment showed that LACTB mRNA expression has high diagnostic value in PAAD. Kaplan-Meier curve and Cox analyses suggested that patients with high LACTB mRNA expression have a poor prognosis, indicating that LACTB mRNA is an independent prognostic factor for overall survival [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.72, P = 0.015, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.106-2.253] and disease-specific survival (HR = 1.97, P = 0.004, 95% CI = 1.238-3.152) of PAAD patients. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) revealed that hallmark_g2m_checkpoint, hallmark_myc_targets_v1, hallmark_e2f_targets, and kegg_cell_cycle were differentially enriched in phenotypes with high LACTB expression. In addition, CDC20, CDK4, MCM6, MAD2L1, MCM2 and MCM5 were leading genes intersecting in these four pathways, and a positive correlation between mRNA expression and LACTB was observed in most normal and cancer tissues. Finally, elevated LACTB mRNA expression was significantly related to multiple immune marker sets. Our results elucidate that LACTB is involved in the development of cancer, and that high LACTB expression in patients with PAAD can predict a poor prognosis. High LACTB expression was significantly correlated with cell cycle-related genes and multiple immune marker sets.