Correlation between mRNA expression and clinical features
Kidney Renal Clear Cell Carcinoma (Primary solid tumor)
17 October 2014  |  analyses__2014_10_17
Maintainer Information
Citation Information
Maintained by TCGA GDAC Team (Broad Institute/MD Anderson Cancer Center/Harvard Medical School)
Cite as Broad Institute TCGA Genome Data Analysis Center (2014): Correlation between mRNA expression and clinical features. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. doi:10.7908/C1M32TNW
Overview
Introduction

This pipeline uses various statistical tests to identify mRNAs whose log2 expression levels correlated to selected clinical features.

Summary

Testing the association between 17814 genes and 9 clinical features across 72 samples, statistically thresholded by P value < 0.05 and Q value < 0.3, 4 clinical features related to at least one genes.

  • 2 genes correlated to 'AGE'.

    • COL18A1 ,  C5ORF35

  • 2 genes correlated to 'NEOPLASM.DISEASESTAGE'.

    • NOP5/NOP58 ,  GNL3L

  • 4 genes correlated to 'PATHOLOGY.T.STAGE'.

    • TRIM11 ,  LOC201725 ,  TARS2 ,  ZNF652

  • 4 genes correlated to 'GENDER'.

    • CYORF15A ,  JARID1D ,  CYORF15B ,  UCHL5IP

  • No genes correlated to 'Time to Death', 'PATHOLOGY.N.STAGE', 'PATHOLOGY.M.STAGE', 'RACE', and 'ETHNICITY'.

Results
Overview of the results

Complete statistical result table is provided in Supplement Table 1

Table 1.  Get Full Table This table shows the clinical features, statistical methods used, and the number of genes that are significantly associated with each clinical feature at P value < 0.05 and Q value < 0.3.

Clinical feature Statistical test Significant genes Associated with                 Associated with
Time to Death Cox regression test   N=0        
AGE Spearman correlation test N=2 older N=1 younger N=1
NEOPLASM DISEASESTAGE Kruskal-Wallis test N=2        
PATHOLOGY T STAGE Spearman correlation test N=4 higher stage N=3 lower stage N=1
PATHOLOGY N STAGE Wilcoxon test   N=0        
PATHOLOGY M STAGE Wilcoxon test   N=0        
GENDER Wilcoxon test N=4 male N=4 female N=0
RACE Kruskal-Wallis test   N=0        
ETHNICITY Wilcoxon test   N=0        
Clinical variable #1: 'Time to Death'

No gene related to 'Time to Death'.

Table S1.  Basic characteristics of clinical feature: 'Time to Death'

Time to Death Duration (Months) 0.5-101.1 (median=36.6)
  censored N = 58
  death N = 14
     
  Significant markers N = 0
Clinical variable #2: 'AGE'

2 genes related to 'AGE'.

Table S2.  Basic characteristics of clinical feature: 'AGE'

AGE Mean (SD) 60.54 (12)
  Significant markers N = 2
  pos. correlated 1
  neg. correlated 1
List of 2 genes differentially expressed by 'AGE'

Table S3.  Get Full Table List of 2 genes significantly correlated to 'AGE' by Spearman correlation test

SpearmanCorr corrP Q
COL18A1 -0.5036 7.595e-06 0.135
C5ORF35 0.4881 1.575e-05 0.281
Clinical variable #3: 'NEOPLASM.DISEASESTAGE'

2 genes related to 'NEOPLASM.DISEASESTAGE'.

Table S4.  Basic characteristics of clinical feature: 'NEOPLASM.DISEASESTAGE'

NEOPLASM.DISEASESTAGE Labels N
  STAGE I 40
  STAGE II 13
  STAGE III 14
  STAGE IV 5
     
  Significant markers N = 2
List of 2 genes differentially expressed by 'NEOPLASM.DISEASESTAGE'

Table S5.  Get Full Table List of 2 genes differentially expressed by 'NEOPLASM.DISEASESTAGE'

ANOVA_P Q
NOP5/NOP58 9.01e-06 0.161
GNL3L 1.626e-05 0.29
Clinical variable #4: 'PATHOLOGY.T.STAGE'

4 genes related to 'PATHOLOGY.T.STAGE'.

Table S6.  Basic characteristics of clinical feature: 'PATHOLOGY.T.STAGE'

PATHOLOGY.T.STAGE Mean (SD) 1.67 (0.84)
  N
  1 41
  2 14
  3 17
     
  Significant markers N = 4
  pos. correlated 3
  neg. correlated 1
List of 4 genes differentially expressed by 'PATHOLOGY.T.STAGE'

Table S7.  Get Full Table List of 4 genes significantly correlated to 'PATHOLOGY.T.STAGE' by Spearman correlation test

SpearmanCorr corrP Q
TRIM11 0.5186 3.057e-06 0.0545
LOC201725 -0.5164 3.432e-06 0.0611
TARS2 0.4975 8.747e-06 0.156
ZNF652 0.4963 9.286e-06 0.165
Clinical variable #5: 'PATHOLOGY.N.STAGE'

No gene related to 'PATHOLOGY.N.STAGE'.

Table S8.  Basic characteristics of clinical feature: 'PATHOLOGY.N.STAGE'

PATHOLOGY.N.STAGE Labels N
  class0 35
  class1 3
     
  Significant markers N = 0
Clinical variable #6: 'PATHOLOGY.M.STAGE'

No gene related to 'PATHOLOGY.M.STAGE'.

Table S9.  Basic characteristics of clinical feature: 'PATHOLOGY.M.STAGE'

PATHOLOGY.M.STAGE Labels N
  M0 67
  M1 5
     
  Significant markers N = 0
Clinical variable #7: 'GENDER'

4 genes related to 'GENDER'.

Table S10.  Basic characteristics of clinical feature: 'GENDER'

GENDER Labels N
  FEMALE 29
  MALE 43
     
  Significant markers N = 4
  Higher in MALE 4
  Higher in FEMALE 0
List of 4 genes differentially expressed by 'GENDER'

Table S11.  Get Full Table List of 4 genes differentially expressed by 'GENDER'. 11 significant gene(s) located in sex chromosomes is(are) filtered out.

W(pos if higher in 'MALE') wilcoxontestP Q AUC
CYORF15A 1204 2.753e-11 4.9e-07 0.9655
JARID1D 1195 5.531e-11 9.85e-07 0.9583
CYORF15B 1174 2.705e-10 4.82e-06 0.9415
UCHL5IP 1000 1.581e-05 0.281 0.8019
Clinical variable #8: 'RACE'

No gene related to 'RACE'.

Table S12.  Basic characteristics of clinical feature: 'RACE'

RACE Labels N
  ASIAN 1
  BLACK OR AFRICAN AMERICAN 5
  WHITE 62
     
  Significant markers N = 0
Clinical variable #9: 'ETHNICITY'

No gene related to 'ETHNICITY'.

Table S13.  Basic characteristics of clinical feature: 'ETHNICITY'

ETHNICITY Labels N
  HISPANIC OR LATINO 7
  NOT HISPANIC OR LATINO 42
     
  Significant markers N = 0
Methods & Data
Input
  • Expresson data file = KIRC-TP.medianexp.txt

  • Clinical data file = KIRC-TP.merged_data.txt

  • Number of patients = 72

  • Number of genes = 17814

  • Number of clinical features = 9

Survival analysis

For survival clinical features, Wald's test in univariate Cox regression analysis with proportional hazards model (Andersen and Gill 1982) was used to estimate the P values using the 'coxph' function in R. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were plot using the four quartile subgroups of patients based on expression levels

Correlation analysis

For continuous numerical clinical features, Spearman's rank correlation coefficients (Spearman 1904) and two-tailed P values were estimated using 'cor.test' function in R

ANOVA analysis

For multi-class clinical features (ordinal or nominal), one-way analysis of variance (Howell 2002) was applied to compare the log2-expression levels between different clinical classes using 'anova' function in R

Student's t-test analysis

For two-class clinical features, two-tailed Student's t test with unequal variance (Lehmann and Romano 2005) was applied to compare the log2-expression levels between the two clinical classes using 't.test' function in R

Q value calculation

For multiple hypothesis correction, Q value is the False Discovery Rate (FDR) analogue of the P value (Benjamini and Hochberg 1995), defined as the minimum FDR at which the test may be called significant. We used the 'Benjamini and Hochberg' method of 'p.adjust' function in R to convert P values into Q values.

Download Results

In addition to the links below, the full results of the analysis summarized in this report can also be downloaded programmatically using firehose_get, or interactively from either the Broad GDAC website or TCGA Data Coordination Center Portal.

References
[1] Andersen and Gill, Cox's regression model for counting processes, a large sample study, Annals of Statistics 10(4):1100-1120 (1982)
[2] Spearman, C, The proof and measurement of association between two things, Amer. J. Psychol 15:72-101 (1904)
[3] Howell, D, Statistical Methods for Psychology. (5th ed.), Duxbury Press:324-5 (2002)
[4] Lehmann and Romano, Testing Statistical Hypotheses (3E ed.), New York: Springer. ISBN 0387988645 (2005)
[5] Benjamini and Hochberg, Controlling the false discovery rate: a practical and powerful approach to multiple testing, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B 59:289-300 (1995)