Fig. 6: The expression level of genes involved in positive cholesterol metabolism is inversely correlated with the response of ISGs in cancer.

a Classification of TCGA patient tumors based on expression level of the indicated genes related with positive cholesterol regulation. b Box plots of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) RNA expression profiles in prostate adenocarcinoma (PRAD), Bladder Urothelial Carcinoma (BLCA), and Head-Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma (HNSC). The highest and lowest 25% of cholesterol metabolism were analyzed by comparing cholesterol metabolism-high and cholesterol metabolism-low groups, respectively. Statistical analysis was performed using a two-tailed Mann-Whitney test. The upper and lower ends of the boxes represent the upper and lower quartiles, and the horizontal line inside the box is the median of the dataset. The whiskers indicate the upper and lower extremes of the dataset (^NSp > 0.05, **p <  0.01). c Classification of TCGA patient tumors into radiation-sensitive and -resistant classes based on the previous report⁵¹. d, e Box plots of TCGA RNA expression profiles are shown in panel (d) for cholesterol synthesis genes SCAP and SREBF1, and in panel (e) for ISG genes, comparing the radiation-sensitive and radiation-resistant classes. (ns not significant; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001).