Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, HLA-DRB1 mass-spec protein differs between tumor and matched normal tissue in 3 of 18 cancer types tested, making tumor–normal expression one of HLA-DRB1’s most consistent transcriptional readouts.

The strongest signal is observed in lung squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC), where HLA-DRB1 mass-spec protein is repressed in tumor relative to normal tissue. In most cancer types HLA-DRB1 is over-expressed in tumor, although a few such as LSCC and LUAD show the opposite, repressed pattern.

LSCC, CCRCC, and LUAD are the cancer types where HLA-DRB1 tumor–normal differential expression is most reproducible.

mass-spec protein tumor vs normal associations by lineage

Ranked by sampling consensus. Fold-change is the tumor-versus-normal difference in HLA-DRB1 mass-spec protein (log₂); positive values indicate higher expression in tumor. p-values are from the differential-expression test.

Lineage	Gender	Stage	Fold-change	p	Sampling consensus
LSCC	Male	II,III,IV	−0.907	<.001	9	view →
CCRCC	Male	II,III,IV	+0.636	<.001	9	view →
LUAD	All	All	−0.206	.002	2	view →

Pink = over-expressed in tumor, green = repressed in tumor. Showing the 3 strongest of 3 lineages.

Exploration

Same gene, other analysis: HLA-DRB1 RNA expression & survival · all HLA-DRB1 data types