title: Comprehensive Characterization of Molecular Differences in Cancer between Male and Female Patients.
abstract: An individual's sex has been long recognized as a key factor affecting cancer incidence, prognosis, and treatment responses. However, the molecular basis for sex disparities in cancer remains poorly understood. We performed a comprehensive analysis of molecular differences between male and female patients in 13 cancer types of The Cancer Genome Atlas and revealed two sex-effect groups associated with distinct incidence and mortality profiles. One group contains a small number of sex-affected genes, whereas the other shows much more extensive sex-biased molecular signatures. Importantly, 53% of clinically actionable genes (60/114) show sex-biased signatures. Our study provides a systematic molecular-level understanding of sex effects in diverse cancers and suggests a pressing need to develop sex-specific therapeutic strategies in certain cancer types.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210029, China.
authors.forename: Lingxiang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Graduate Program in Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
authors.forename: Hu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Graduate Program in Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
authors.forename: Yumeng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
authors.forename: Yanxun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Department of Biostatistics, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
authors.forename: Huzhang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Systems Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
authors.forename: Gordon B
authors.initials: GB
authors.lastname: Mills
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210029, China.
authors.forename: Yongqian
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shu
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Graduate Program in Structural and Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA; Department of Systems Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA. Electronic address: hliang1@mdanderson.org.
authors.forename: Han
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liang
mesh_terms: D056915:DNA Copy Number Variations; D019175:DNA Methylation; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods; D015972:Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic; D015894:Genome, Human / Q000235:genetics*; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000235:genetics; D009154:Mutation; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D040901:Proteomics / Q000379:methods*; D012737:Sex Factors
chemical_list: D035683:MicroRNAs