Fig. 2.

Determination of PDAC-specific PBMC marker selection. A. Volcano plot depicting DEGs between patients with PDAC and controls. Blue and red dots are genes satisfying adjusted p-value < 0.05 and log2 fold change < − 0.25 and > 0.25, respectively. B. Box plot showing inferred cell type composition in RNA-seq in 15 patients with PDAC and 7 controls. C. UMAP plot of 18,895 cells from the PBMCs of four healthy controls. D. UMAP plot showing expression of ID3, IL-7R, and PLD4. Black dotted lines highlight CD4 T cells. E. qPCR data for IL-7R, PLD4, and ID3 between controls and patients with PDAC. F. Immunohistochemical staining of ID3-expressing cells and IL-7R-expressing cells. PLD4-expressing immune cells were not found; however, CD3 + IL-7R + and CD3⁺ID3⁺-co-expressing cells were found in PDAC tissues. PDAC, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma; PBMC, peripheral blood mononuclear cells; DEGs, differentially expressed genes; IL-7R, interleukin-7 receptor; PLD4, phospholipase D 4; ID3, inhibitor of DNA binding 3