Fig. 1. NEK2 is a prognostic factor for immunologically “hot” pancreatic cancer.

a–c Expression profile of NEK2 in pancreatic cancer. Relative NEK2 expression in pancreatic cancer was analyzed using large-scale RNA-Seq datasets of PDAC from the TCGA database (n (T) = 179, n (N) = 171; n: number of patients) (a). NEK2 expression was measured in paired tumor and normal pancreatic tissues by IHC staining, with representative images (b) and statistical results (c) shown (n = 30; n: number of patients) (N: Normal pancreatic tissue; T: Pancreatic tumor tissue). Scale bars: 100 μm. d Correlation of NEK2 with prognostic factors in pancreatic cancer. Tissue microarray analysis of the prognostic role of NEK2 in pancreatic cancer (n = 64 weakly positive; n = 50 strongly positive) (p < 0.0001). e Overall survival (OS) of patients with pancreatic cancer with high or low expression of NEK2 (n = 177). f Overall survival (OS) of pancreatic cancer patients with high numbers of CD8⁺ T cells and with high or low expression of NEK2 (n = 76). g Overall survival (OS) of pancreatic cancer patients with decreased CD8⁺ T cells and with high or low expression of NEK2 (n = 101). h Bioinformatics analysis of the correlation between NEK2 and immune effector cells using TCGA datasets. In a, data are represented as boxplots where the middle line is the median; the lower and upper hinges correspond to the first and third quartiles; the upper whisker extends from the hinge to the largest value no further than 1.5 × IQR from the hinge (where IQR is the inter-quartile range); the lower whisker extends from the hinge to the smallest value at most 1.5 × IQR of the hinge, while data beyond the end of the whiskers are outlying points that are plotted individually. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001 using a two-tailed t-test; ns: not significant. Kaplan–Meier method and a Gehan–Breslow–Wilcoxon test are indicated in d. The Hazard Ratios (HR) and p-values by the log-rank (Mantel–Cox) test are indicated in e–g.