FIGURE 9 from INHBA is Enriched in HPV-negative Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Promotes Cancer Progression

Correlation analyses between INHBA expression, immune infiltrates and miRNAs. A, Waterfall plot showing Spearman correlation between INHBA expression level and infiltrating ratios (IR) of different immune cells, as computed by immune cell deconvolution. Rho > 0.4 was considered relevant (dashed line). *, P ≤ 0.05; ***, P ≤ 0.001; ns, not significant. B, Correlation matrix between INHBA and the pro-tumor M1 signature showing Spearman rho and P-value symbols (*, P ≤ 0.05; **, P ≤ 0.01; ***, P ≤ 0.001) in the upper triangular matrix and scatter plots in the lower triangular matrix. TPM = transcripts per million. C, Waterfall plot showing Spearman correlation between INHBA expression level and miRNAs (TCGA cohort). miRNAs with Rho < −0.4 and P < 0.05 were considered relevant (dashed line). D, Venn diagram showing intersections between negatively correlating miRNAs from C and miRNAs predicted to interact with the 3′UTR of INHBA by miRDB and Targetscan resulting in three candidates of interest (hsa-mir-106a, hsa-mir-20b, hsa-mir-9-1/2/3). Their putative binding sites to the INHBA 3′UTR are highlighted. E–G, Kaplan–Meier plots with log-rank test for overall survival of patients with OPSCC (TCGA cohort) based on tumor miRNA expression of the outlined candidates (E: hsa-mir-106a, F: hsa-mir-20b, G: hsa-mir-9). Blue indicates low and red indicates high miRNA expression, as determined using median of raw counts as cutoff.