Fig 2: Altered expression of cuproptosis-related genes in DSS-induced colitis. (A) representative images of immunohistochemical staining of FDX1, LIAS, and DLAT in colonic tissues (200× magnification, n = 3). (B) The integrated option density was used in order to quantify FDX1, LIAS, and DLAT proteins. (C)FDX1, LIAS, and DLAT expression levels in colon tissues were detected by qRT-PCR (n = 6). **p < 0.005 compared to the control.

Fig 3: Comprehensive analysis of the effect of DLAT and related key genes on immune infiltration. (A) The correlations between DLAT and related key genes and the expression of immunomodulatory genes; (B) the results of ssGSEA revealed the influence of DLAT and related key genes on the infiltration abundance of 24 types of TIICs; (C) the differences in PD-1, PD-L1, and CTLA-4 expression between TCGA-PAAD samples grouped according to the expression of key immune-related genes (ns: no significance; * p value < 0.05; ** p value < 0.01; *** p value < 0.001).

Fig 4: Drug sensitivity analysis revealed the effect of DLAT on therapeutic resistance. (A) The correlation between DLAT expression and the responses of PAAD cell lines to the top 15 influenced drugs; (B) the difference in the IC50s of the top 15 drugs whose sensitivity was most affected by DLAT between DLAT—high and DLAT—low PAAD samples; (C) the difference in the IC50s of the drugs commonly used for digestive system tumors between DLAT—high and DLAT—low PAAD samples (* p value < 0.05; ** p value < 0.01; *** p value < 0.001).

Fig 5: The expression and prognostic value of DLAT was validated in the TCGA cohort and the FUSCC cohort. (A) The differential expression of DLAT in tumor and nontumor tissue samples was validated by analysis of the TCGA database and the GTEx database; (B) the role of DLAT in predicting the overall survival of patients with PAAD was validated by the TCGA cohort; (C) qRT–PCR confirmed that the expression of DLAT in tumor tissues is significantly higher than that in paired adjacent nontumor tissues; (D) the role of DLAT in predicting the overall survival of patients with PAAD was validated by the FUSCC cohort; (E) Western blotting confirmed that the expression of DLAT in tumor tissues is higher than that in paired adjacent nontumor tissues (the whole western blots are shown in Figure S3); (F) tissue immunofluorescence showed the high expression of DLAT in PAAD; (G,H) DLAT–related nomogram and calibration curve for survival probability prediction (*** p value < 0.001).