Fig. 5: dACE2 expression is enriched in squamous epithelial tumors.

a, A bubble plot showing the mean expression levels (RNA-seq read counts) and proportions of samples with dACE2-Ex1c in TCGA tumor-adjacent normal tissues and 33 tumor types. dACE2-Ex1c is expressed at relatively high levels and in many tumors of the bladder (BLCA), cervix (CESC), esophagus (ESCA), head and neck (HNSC) and lung squamous carcinoma (LUSC). b, RNA-seq counts of ACE2-Ex1a, ACE2-Ex1b and dACE2-Ex1c in tumor-adjacent normal tissues (AN), squamous tumors (SQ) and non-squamous tumors (NSQ). The dACE2 expression is significantly higher in squamous compared to non-squamous tumors of the same tissue origin and corresponding tumor-adjacent normal tissues. Specifically, dACE2-Ex1c is expressed similarly in tumor-adjacent normal tissues adjacent to LUSC and lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), while it is significantly higher in corresponding tumors and higher in LUSC than in LUAD, due to the clonal origin of these tumors from cells with differential expression of dACE2. The box-and-whisker plots represent mean (+), median (center line), box (25th–75th interquartile range), whiskers (5th–90th percentile range) and outliers (individual data points). The P values are for non-parametric, two-sided Mann–Whitney U tests.