MERTK

Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, MERTK RNA differs between tumor and matched normal tissue in 8 of 18 cancer types tested, making tumor–normal expression one of MERTK’s most consistent transcriptional readouts.

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

HNSC, KIRP, and BRCA are the cancer types where MERTK 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 MERTK 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	All	II,III,IV	+0.645	.012	7	view →
KIRP	Male	II,III,IV	−1.016	<.001	6	view →
BRCA	Female	All	−0.768	<.001	6	view →
PAAD	All	All	−1.255	.040	2	view →
UCEC	All	All	+0.476	.045	2	view →
LUSC	All	All	+0.416	.014	2	view →
KICH	Female	II,III,IV	+0.594	.039	1	view →
STAD	Male	II,III,IV	+0.558	.046	1	view →

Pink = over-expressed in tumor, green = repressed in tumor. Showing the 8 strongest of 8 lineages.

MERTK–HNSC

Open the HNSC breakdown →