  Precision measurements of heavy-flavor hadroproduction at the Large Hadron
Collider (LHC) have the ability to probe heavy-flavor parton distribution
functions (PDFs) in the proton. Sensitivity of inclusive $B^\pm$ meson
production cross section measurements at LHCb 13 TeV to the bottom-quark PDF is
illustrated by using theory predictions obtained with a the S-ACOT-MPS general
mass variable flavor number (GMVFN) scheme within the QCD factorization
formula. This approach can easily be extended to other heavy-flavor production
processes, such as $Z$ boson production in association with a bottom- or a
charm-jet. The inclusion of such measurements will represent an important
improvement for future global QCD analyses that aim at reducing uncertainties
of heavy-flavor PDFs, provided that a consistent general mass treatment in $pp$
collisions is used.
  This work is related to the activities of the Snowmass topic groups EF03, and
EF06.
