Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, HLA-U RNA differs between tumor and matched normal tissue in 5 of 18 cancer types tested, making tumor–normal expression one of HLA-U’s most consistent transcriptional readouts.

The strongest signal is observed in kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC), where HLA-U RNA is more highly expressed in tumor relative to normal tissue. In most cancer types HLA-U is over-expressed in tumor, although a few such as LUAD show the opposite, repressed pattern.

KIRC, HNSC, and LIHC are the cancer types where HLA-U 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-U 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
KIRC	Female	All	+1.760	<.001	10	view →
HNSC	All	All	+0.701	.003	6	view →
LIHC	All	All	+0.657	<.001	6	view →
CHOL	All	All	+1.246	<.001	3	view →
LUAD	All	IV	−1.914	.025	2	view →

Pink = over-expressed in tumor, green = repressed in tumor. Showing the 5 strongest of 5 lineages.

Exploration

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