Tissue-Level Transcriptomic Entropy Reveals Organ-Specific Aging Patterns and Predicts Cancer Progression.

Abstract

Although aging and cancer share complex molecular mechanisms, distinguishing causative factors from byproducts remains challenging. Here, we investigated the role of tissue transcriptomic entropy-a measure of transcriptional disorder-in aging and cancer processes by analyzing RNA-sequencing data from over 25,000 samples from human and mouse tissues. We found that entropy changes during aging are highly tissue-specific, with some tissues showing increased entropy while others exhibit decreased or stable entropy levels. Moreover, transcriptomic entropy strongly correlates with age-related processes, showing positive associations with proliferation, cellular senescence, somatic mutation burden, and cellular reprogramming, whereas it negatively correlates with stemness. In cancer, we observed that primary tumors generally display higher entropy than normal tissue, with its levels further increasing in metastatic stages. Cancer treatment modulated entropy patterns in multiple contexts, with changes suggesting a role for transcriptional complexity in tumor plasticity and therapy resistance. Elevated entropy levels predicted poor survival outcomes in multiple cancer types, suggesting its potential as a prognostic marker. Furthermore, differential expression analysis revealed that entropy-associated genes are enriched in developmental processes and depleted in metabolic pathways, indicating a possible link to cellular dedifferentiation. Finally, we found increased entropy in various age-related disorders beyond cancer, suggesting that transcriptomic entropy may be a common feature in age-related diseases. Our findings establish transcriptomic entropy as a fundamental parameter in aging and cancer progression, offering new insights into disease mechanisms.