TERT

Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, TERT RNA differs between tumor and matched normal tissue in 16 of 18 cancer types tested, making tumor–normal expression one of TERT’s most consistent transcriptional readouts.

The strongest signal is observed in bladder urothelial carcinoma (BLCA), where TERT RNA is more highly expressed in tumor relative to normal tissue. In most cancer types TERT is over-expressed in tumor.

BLCA, COAD, and HNSC are the cancer types where TERT 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 TERT 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
BLCA	Male	All	+0.960	<.001	10	view →
COAD	Male	II,III,IV	+0.949	<.001	10	view →
HNSC	Male	III,IV	+0.323	<.001	10	view →
LUAD	Male	All	+0.509	<.001	8	view →
STAD	All	All	+1.022	<.001	7	view →
LIHC	All	All	+0.603	<.001	7	view →
UCEC	All	All	+1.154	<.001	6	view →
KIRP	All	II,III,IV	+0.276	<.001	6	view →
BRCA	All	II,III,IV	+0.161	<.001	6	view →
LUSC	All	II,III,IV	+0.677	<.001	5	view →
KIRC	Male	All	+0.084	<.001	5	view →
THCA	All	III,IV	+0.148	.008	3	view →

Pink = over-expressed in tumor, green = repressed in tumor. Showing the 12 strongest of 16 lineages.

TERT–BLCA

Open the BLCA breakdown →