High Expression of CX3CL1/CX3CR1 Axis Predicts a Poor Prognosis of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

CX3CL1 is a member of the chemokine family, and its receptor, CX3CR1, is expressed in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. However, it is unclear whether there is a correlation between the expression of CX3CL1/CX3CR1 axis and the prognosis of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Tissue microarray and immunohistochemistry were used to study the expression of CX3CL1 and CX3CR1 in 105 specimens of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. We analyzed a relationship between patients' clinicopathological parameters and overall survival to the expression level of the CX3CL1/CX3CR1 axis using standard statistical analysis. The expression of CX3CL1 and CX3CR1 (77.1 and 66.7 %, respectively) was clearly increased in areas of malignancy compared with peritumoral areas. We did not find any correlation between CX3CL1 and CX3CR1 expression with clinical or pathological data. Patients' overall survival was clearly worse with the combined high expression of CX3CL1 and CX3CR1. Patients with a high CX3CL1 expression tumor had a significantly shorter overall survival. High CX3CR1 expression was an independent negative prognosis factor. We propose that the expression level of CX3CL1/CX3CR1 axis could provide clinical prognostic value, and the next steps should be to further investigate the mechanism by which CX3CL1 and its receptor impact survival in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.