Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, HLA-DRB1 RNA is linked to patient survival in 25 of 34 cancer types, making it the most broadly survival-associated HLA-DRB1 data layer compared with 2 for mutation status and 7 for mass-spec protein.

The strongest signal is observed in skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM), where higher HLA-DRB1 RNA is associated with better overall survival. In most high-consensus cancer types, elevated HLA-DRB1 expression acts as an unfavorable survival marker, although some lineages such as SKCM and KIRC show a favorable association.

SKCM, UVM, and LGG are the cancer types where HLA-DRB1 RNA most reproducibly stratifies survival.

RNA survival associations by lineage

Ranked by sampling consensus. AUC1 and AUC2 indicate survival in the high- and low-expression groups, respectively; the lower AUC marks the poorer-surviving group. p-values are from the log-rank test.

Lineage	Measure	Split	Stage	AUC1 high	AUC2 low	p	Sampling consensus
SKCM	OS	Median	All	0.443	0.255	<.001	127	view →
UVM	DFS	Median	All	0.385	0.828	<.001	71	view →
LGG	OS	Median	All	0.744	0.871	<.001	51	view →
KIRC	DFS	Median	II,III,IV	0.619	0.361	.008	50	view →
THYM	DFS	Quartile	All	0.472	0.915	.002	28	view →
LUAD	DFS	Median	All	0.834	0.747	.005	26	view →
LIHC	DFS	Quartile	II,III,IV	0.560	0.308	.001	24	view →
HNSC	DFS	Quartile	III,IV	0.638	0.463	.017	23	view →
CESC	OS	Quartile	III,IV	0.853	0.499	.018	18	view →
ACC	DFS	Median	All	0.674	0.333	.015	16	view →
LAML	DFS	Quartile	All	0.302	0.660	.002	16	view →
KIRP	DFS	Quartile	All	0.408	0.811	.015	14	view →

Pink = unfavorable, green = favorable. Showing the 12 strongest of 25 lineages.

Exploration

Same gene, other analysis: HLA-DRB1 tumor-vs-normal RNA expression · all HLA-DRB1 data types