Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, MUC21 mass-spec protein differs between tumor and matched normal tissue in 2 of 18 cancer types tested, making tumor–normal expression one of MUC21’s most consistent transcriptional readouts.

The strongest signal is observed in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSC), where MUC21 mass-spec protein is repressed in tumor relative to normal tissue. In most cancer types MUC21 is over-expressed in tumor, although a few such as HNSC show the opposite, repressed pattern.

HNSC and LUAD are the cancer types where MUC21 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 MUC21 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
HNSC	Male	IV	−2.406	<.001	8	view →
LUAD	All	All	+0.713	.004	3	view →

Pink = over-expressed in tumor, green = repressed in tumor. Showing the 2 strongest of 2 lineages.

Exploration

Same gene, other analysis: MUC21 RNA expression & survival · all MUC21 data types