A strong correlation was observed between MICAL2 and M2 macrophages biomarker CD163 in the TCGA dataset (r = 0.512, p < 0.05, Fig. 6E), while immunohistochemistry staining showed that more CD163-positive cells were observed in the MICAL2high patient with pancreatic cancer compared with the MICAL2low patient (Fig. 6F). Here, CD163 is linked to familial pancreatic carcinoma.