Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, HLA-C RNA differs between tumor and matched normal tissue in 12 of 18 cancer types tested, making tumor–normal expression one of HLA-C’s most consistent transcriptional readouts.
The strongest signal is observed in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC), where HLA-C RNA is more highly expressed in tumor relative to normal tissue. In most cancer types HLA-C is over-expressed in tumor, although a few such as LUAD and LUSC show the opposite, repressed pattern.
HNSC, KIRC, and LUAD are the cancer types where HLA-C 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 HLA-C RNA (log2); positive values indicate higher expression in tumor. p-values are from the differential-expression test.