Fig. 1

UBL4A decrease in PDAC and its high expression is correlated with longer survival. a The expression of UBL4A in 19 normal pancreatic tissues and 69 PDAC tissues was detected by qRT-PCR assays. b Kaplan–Meier plot of overall survival of patients with PDAC. The low and high levels of UBL4A expression were separated according to the median value. c Representative staining with antibody against UBL4A in PDAC or normal pancreatic tissues detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC) (original magnification, 20×)(bar, 400 μm). d Specimens were scored and estimated in relative integrated optical density (IOD) value or in percentage of positive cells. e Western blotting of proteins extracted from eight paired samples of tumor (T) and normal pancreatic tissues (N). f Densitometric quantification of western blotting results. g, h UBL4A protein levels in HPDE and four PDAC cell lines detected by western blotting and densitometric quantification of western blotting results. i Relative UBL4A mRNA levels in HPDE and four PDAC cell lines by qRT-PCR. The statistical significance between different groups was calculated with Student t-test. Data are shown as the mean ± SD of three replicates; *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001; ns: not significant