Introduction: Pancreatic cancer is one of the highly malignant cancers that have a poor prognosis and limited treatment options. The development of targeted therapies is important for improving the patient’s outcome. mRNA-based biomarkers offer a promising avenue for developing the targeted therapies in Pancreatic Cancer as they identify the key genes involved in disease progression.

Methods: In this study, we analyzed the datasets from the GEO database to identify potential mRNA biomarkers for pancreatic cancer. Differentially expressed gene (DEG) analysis was conducted using R Bioconductor by applying statistical thresholds of adjusted p-value < 0.05 and log2 fold-change > 1 to identify genes that expressed differentially between tumor and normal samples. Functional enrichment and pathway analysis were carried out to understand the biological roles of the identified DEGs. Additionally, FDA-approved drugs wererepurposed as an inhibitor against the upregulated genes, validated through simulations.

Results: TFF1 and CELA2A together emerged as key candidate genes for pancreatic cancer among the identified DEGs. Functional enrichment analysis showed that these genes are involved in cell proliferation, apoptosis, and metastasis. These findings suggest that these genes play a significant role in pancreatic cancer progression and can be utilized as a target for therapeutic intervention. The identified genes are further validated through an independent dataset from the TCGA database.

Conclusion: TFF1 and CELA2A were identified as the potential mRNA-based biomarkers for pancreatic cancer. These biomarkers have the potential to serve as molecular elements for targeted therapies, offering hope for improvement in more precise, personalized treatments and for minimizing side effects, addressing the complexity of pancreatic cancer.