Figure 8.

Prognostic model genes for PC reveals its invasion and metastasis potential through hybrid EMT and immune escape. Hypoxic pancreatic cancer cells are more likely to suffer necroptosis to induce inflammation and immune responses in tumor tissues, which further enhance fibrosis and heterogeneity of tumor, thus the fibrotic and inflammatory circumstance together with immune evasion induced by Th2 assist PC cells to escape from immune elimination. Furthermore, our model genes promote tumor invasion and metastasis by promoting EMT especially hybrid EMT of PC cells that KRT7 and KRT19 are involved in EMT as epithelial components, while CXCL5 and IGF2BP3 act as regulatory factors to regulate EMT. Ultimately, the above effects together promote tumor invasion and metastasis.