Brown fat cell differentiation

Across TCGA pan-cancer cohorts, RNA activity of the Brown fat cell differentiation pathway is associated with patient survival in 23 of 34 cancer lineages. Pathway activity is summarized from the expression of its 54 member genes.

The strongest signal is observed in thyroid carcinoma (THCA), where higher Brown fat cell differentiation 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 ACC and SKCM, show the opposite pattern, with higher activity associated with better survival.

THCA, ACC, and SKCM 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
THCA	OS	Tertile	All	0.942	0.996	<.001	101	view →
ACC	OS	Tertile	II,III,IV	1.000	0.325	.004	59	view →
SKCM	DFS	Quartile	All	0.892	0.641	<.001	37	view →
ESCA	OS	Quartile	III,IV	0.692	0.345	.010	36	view →
OV	DFS	Median	All	0.593	0.494	.002	36	view →
MESO	OS	Quartile	III,IV	0.737	0.438	.004	22	view →
CESC	OS	Tertile	All	0.944	0.831	.021	20	view →
CHOL	DFS	Quartile	II,III,IV	0.159	0.653	.017	18	view →
LIHC	OS	Tertile	II,III,IV	0.745	0.405	.009	15	view →
THYM	DFS	Tertile	All	0.776	0.946	.009	13	view →
LAML	DFS	Median	All	0.551	0.367	.009	12	view →
DLBC	OS	Median	III,IV	0.310	1.000	.011	11	view →

Pink = unfavorable, green = favorable. Showing the 12 strongest of 23 lineages.

GO:0050873–THCA (OS)

Open the THCA breakdown →