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Figure 6 | Molecular Cancer

Figure 6

From: MUC16 (CA125): tumor biomarker to cancer therapy, a work in progress

Figure 6

Analysis of data on MUC16 available through TCGA analysis of ovarian cancer samples. A TCGA data set [148] was analyzed to determine differential expression of prominent cancer-related genes between normal ovarian tissue and ovarian carcinoma (heat map in top panel). Although MUC16 is upregulated in the cancer samples (expression in cancer specimens is double than in normal) this difference is not significant (p-value = 0.1), probably because there were only 8 normal samples in TCGA dataset. MUC16 is compared to other prominent mutated genes reported in the original TCGA report [148]. Of these genes, only BRCA2 is differentially expressed between normal and cancer (p-value <0.001) samples. Analysis of mutated and wild-type MUC16 expression in samples from ovarian cancer patients listed in TCGA is shown in the heat map in the lower panel. Mutated MUC16 is also mildly over-expressed as compared to wild-type mucin (expression Wild-type/Mutated = 0.94), however this difference is not significant (p-value = 0.84). MUC16 is compared to other genes reported to be highly mutated at the original report of TCGA. None of the other genes is differentially expressed between MUC16-wild-type and MUC16-mutated ovarian cancer specimens, indicating no association between MUC16 mutation status and key genes expression in this dataset (p-value <0.05). B, Survival of ovarian cancer patients with wild-type and mutated MUC16 was compared. Although a trend was observed suggesting worse outcome in patients with mutated MUC16, the difference was not statistically significant (p-value = 0.28). C, MUC16 (both mutated and wild-type) expression was divided into quartiles. Survival of patients in each of these quartiles was not significantly different.

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