GSEA revealed that the high- and low-risk score groups showed significant differences in TGF-beta receptor signaling, the Wnt signaling pathway, senescence and autophagy in cancer, and the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, which might account for the poor PAAD prognosis owing to risk modifiers (Aguilera and Dawson, 2021; Cortesi et al., 2021; Yang et al., 2021; Stanciu et al., 2022; Yamamoto et al., 2022). Here, AKT1 is linked to pancreatic adenocarcinoma.