Intra-Tumour Signalling Entropy Determines Clinical Outcome in Breast and Lung Cancer
Fig 1
Rationale behind signalling entropy as a prognostic factor in cancer.
A) A high signalling entropy of a tumour sample indicates a promiscuous, stem cell like intra-cellular signalling regime and a heterogeneous cancer cell population. The consequence of a high entropy is thus a tumour with a plastic phenotype, capable of activating diverse pathways in response to treatment. High signalling entropy tumours are thus likely to result in higher patient mortality. B) Signalling entropy (denoted SR/max SR) computed for 528 distinct pairwise mixtures of 33 homogeneous tissue samples reveals that our measure is super-additive and hence will be raised, on average, in mixed samples compared to homogeneous samples. C) Signalling entropy is raised on average in mixed samples as compared to homogeneous samples, considering the same 33 homogeneous tissue samples as Fig. 1B. The p-value corresponds to a two tailed paired Wilcoxon signed rank test, and reveals that signalling entropy is significantly elevated in the admixed cell populations on average.