Expression patterns of small numbers of transcripts from functionally-related pathways predict survival in multiple cancers

BACKGROUND: Genetic profiling of cancers for variations in copy number, structure or expression of certain genes has improved diagnosis, risk-stratification and therapeutic decision-making. However the tumor-restricted nature of these changes limits their application to certain cancer types or sub-types. Tests with broader prognostic capabilities are lacking. METHODS: Using RNAseq data from 10,227 tumors in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), we evaluated 212 protein-coding transcripts from 12 cancer-related pathways. We employed t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) to identify expression pattern difference among each pathway’s transcripts. We have previously used t-SNE to show that survival in some cancers correlates with expression patterns of transcripts encoding ribosomal proteins and enzymes for cholesterol biosynthesis and fatty acid oxidation. RESULTS: Using the above 212 transcripts, t-SNE-assisted transcript pattern profiling identified patient cohorts with significant survival differences in 30 of 34 different cancer types comprising 9350 tumors (91.4% of all TCGA cases). Small subsets of each pathway’s transcripts, comprising no more than 50–60 from the original group, played particularly prominent roles in determining overall t-SNE patterns. In several cases, further refinements in long-term survival could be achieved by sequential t-SNE profiling with two pathways’ transcripts, by a combination of t-SNE plus whole transcriptome profiling or by employing t-SNE on immuno-histochemically defined breast cancer subtypes. In two cancer types, individuals with Stage IV disease at presentation could be readily subdivided into groups with highly significant survival differences based on t-SNE-based tumor sub-classification. CONCLUSIONS: t-SNE-assisted profiling of a small number of transcripts allows the prediction of long-term survival across multiple cancer types. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12885-019-5851-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.