Protection from non-homologous end joining at telomere

Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, RNA activity of the Protection from non-homologous end joining at telomere pathway is associated with patient survival in 24 of 34 cancer lineages. Pathway activity is summarized from the expression of its 8 member genes.

The strongest signal is observed in rectum adenocarcinoma (READ), where higher Protection from non-homologous end joining at telomere pathway activity is associated with better disease-free survival. In most high-consensus cancer types, elevated pathway activity shows an unfavorable survival association, although some cancer types, such as READ and UCS, show the opposite pattern, with higher activity associated with better survival.

READ, LIHC, and KIRP 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.

Lineage	Measure	Split	Stage	AUC1 high	AUC2 low	p	Sampling consensus
READ	DFS	Median	All	0.818	0.596	<.001	73	view →
LIHC	OS	Median	III,IV	0.425	0.736	<.001	51	view →
KIRP	DFS	Quartile	All	0.800	0.973	<.001	39	view →
MESO	OS	Median	IV	0.313	0.731	.010	38	view →
ACC	DFS	Quartile	II,III,IV	0.477	0.905	.005	31	view →
LGG	OS	Median	All	0.747	0.856	<.001	25	view →
UCS	DFS	Median	II,III,IV	0.605	0.206	.002	22	view →
DLBC	OS	Quartile	All	1.000	0.451	.007	20	view →
ESCA	OS	Tertile	IV	0.743	0.339	.017	15	view →
CHOL	OS	Median	III,IV	1.000	0.286	.008	13	view →
LUSC	DFS	Quartile	III,IV	0.277	1.000	.009	12	view →
THCA	DFS	Tertile	All	0.912	0.783	.008	12	view →

Pink = unfavorable, green = favorable. Showing the 12 strongest of 24 lineages.

GO:0031848–READ (DFS)

Open the READ breakdown →