Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, RNA activity of the Cytokine production involved in immune response pathway is associated with patient survival in 24 of 34 cancer lineages. Pathway activity is summarized from the expression of its 122 member genes.
The strongest signal is observed in skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM), where higher Cytokine production involved in immune response pathway activity is associated with better overall survival. In most high-consensus cancer types, elevated pathway activity shows an unfavorable survival association, although some cancer types, such as SKCM and LUAD, show the opposite pattern, with higher activity associated with better survival.
SKCM, LGG, and LUAD are the cancer lineages in which this pathway most reproducibly stratifies patient survival.
Pathway-activity survival associations by lineage
Ranked by sampling consensus. AUC1 and AUC2 represent the survival AUCs for the high- and low-pathway-activity groups, respectively. The group with the lower AUC is interpreted as having poorer survival. The reported p-values are derived from the log-rank test.