Tetrapyrrole metabolic process

Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, RNA activity of the Tetrapyrrole metabolic process pathway is associated with patient survival in 20 of 34 cancer lineages. Pathway activity is summarized from the expression of its 62 member genes.

The strongest signal is observed in uveal melanoma (UVM), where higher Tetrapyrrole metabolic process pathway activity is associated with poorer overall survival. In most high-consensus cancer types, elevated pathway activity shows an unfavorable survival association, although some cancer types, such as HNSC and BRCA, show the opposite pattern, with higher activity associated with better survival.

UVM, HNSC, and BRCA 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
UVM	OS	Median	All	0.425	0.787	<.001	141	view →
HNSC	OS	Median	All	0.814	0.703	<.001	86	view →
BRCA	OS	Quartile	III,IV	0.944	0.735	.001	57	view →
UCEC	OS	Quartile	All	0.871	0.961	.001	50	view →
SCLC	OS	Median	II,III,IV	0.861	0.489	.001	49	view →
ACC	DFS	Median	II,III,IV	0.147	0.611	<.001	46	view →
THCA	OS	Quartile	II,III,IV	0.195	0.875	<.001	32	view →
CHOL	DFS	Quartile	II,III,IV	0.162	0.706	.002	28	view →
LIHC	DFS	Quartile	All	0.505	0.215	.005	20	view →
LGG	OS	Quartile	All	0.626	0.864	.002	18	view →
READ	DFS	Median	All	0.899	0.680	.006	17	view →
TGCT	DFS	Quartile	II,III,IV	0.421	1.000	.009	16	view →

Pink = unfavorable, green = favorable. Showing the 12 strongest of 20 lineages.

GO:0033013–UVM (OS)

Open the UVM breakdown →