Fig. 1

High CELF2 expression in patient samples was correlated with longer overall survival. A, B Transcriptional sequencing was conducted to analyze differential expression genes in different TNM stages of PC. A The heapmap of the differential expression genes. B The volcano plot of the differential expression genes. The red arrow presented the expression of CELF2. C The mRNA expression of CELF2 in PC tissues and pericarcinomatous tissue was analyzed by qRT-PCR. D The mRNA expression of CELF2 in tumor tissues was lower than that in pericarcinomatous tissue. E The lower expression of CELF2 mRNA is closely related to the distant metastasis of tumors. F Western blot was used to analyze the protein expression of CELF2 in tumor (T) and pericarcinomatous tissue (P). G CELF2 protein expression was significantly lower in tumor tissues than that in pericarcinomatous tissue. H The lower expression of CELF2 protein is closely related to the distant metastasis of tumors. I CELF2 was overexpressed in the nucleus of PC tissues, but its expression was low in paired pericarcinomatous tissue. The label "CELF2(+)" represents positive expression and "CELF2(−)" represents negative expression in pancreatic cancer cells. J The survival of pancreatic cancer patients with high CELF2 expression was significantly better than that of patients with low expression from the TCGA database. K Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed that overall survival in the high CELF2 expression group was better than that in low expression groups in our clinical center. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01