CD44

Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, CD44 RNA differs between tumor and matched normal tissue in 11 of 18 cancer types tested, making tumor–normal expression one of CD44’s most consistent transcriptional readouts.

The strongest signal is observed in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC), where CD44 RNA is more highly expressed in tumor relative to normal tissue. In most cancer types CD44 is over-expressed in tumor, although a few such as LUAD and UCEC show the opposite, repressed pattern.

HNSC, COAD, and KIRC are the cancer types where CD44 tumor–normal differential expression is most reproducible.

RNA tumor vs normal associations by lineage

Ranked by sampling consensus. Fold-change is the tumor-versus-normal difference in CD44 RNA (log₂); positive values indicate higher expression in tumor. p-values are from the differential-expression test.

Lineage	Gender	Stage	Fold-change	p	Sampling consensus
HNSC	Female	III,IV	+1.373	<.001	12	view →
COAD	Female	II,III,IV	+1.647	<.001	11	view →
KIRC	Male	All	+1.370	<.001	11	view →
THCA	Female	II,III,IV	+1.194	<.001	10	view →
LUAD	Male	II,III,IV	−1.144	<.001	8	view →
READ	All	All	+1.290	<.001	7	view →
KIRP	All	All	+1.225	<.001	6	view →
LIHC	All	II,III,IV	+1.053	.006	4	view →
CHOL	All	All	+2.088	.003	3	view →
UCEC	All	All	−1.596	<.001	2	view →
BLCA	All	All	−0.720	.048	2	view →

Pink = over-expressed in tumor, green = repressed in tumor. Showing the 11 strongest of 11 lineages.

CD44–HNSC

Open the HNSC breakdown →