LOX expression and BRAF mutations in thyroid cancer. (A) TCGA analysis of LOX mRNA expression in mutated BRAF and WT tumors. (B) Correlation analysis of LOX and genes/proteins associated with the ERK pathway from TCGA data set (r = 0.61, p < 0.0001). (C) Estimated DFS by Kaplan–Meier analysis that uses all tumors from TCGA data set to compare the DFS of patients with high and low LOX expression levels (HR = 2 [CI 1.1–3.6], p = 0.019). (D) Estimated DFS by Kaplan–Meier analysis that uses all tumors from TCGA data set to compare the DFS of patients with high and low LOX expression levels and with and without BRAF mutation (mutated BRAF and high LOX vs. mutated BRAF and low LOX: HR = 2.3 [CI 1.1–4.9], p = 0.03; WT BRAF and high LOX vs. WT BRAF low LOX: HR = 1 [CI0.2–3.6], p = 0.9; mutated BRAF and high LOX vs. WT BRAF and low LOX: HR = 2.3 [CI 1.1–4.6], p = 0.019). (E) Estimated DFS by Kaplan–Meier analysis of patients with BRAF mutations from TCGA data set. Patients were categorized into four groups according to the overall stage and LOX expression level: low-stage high LOX versus low-stage low LOX (HR = 2.9 [CI 0.9–9.8], p = 0.06) and high-stage high LOX versus high-stage low LOX (HR = 1.4 [CI 0.5–3.8], p = 0.55). (F) Correlation analysis of LOX expression by RT-PCR and percentage of BRAFV600E mutations detected by ddPCR (r = 0.56, p < 0.0001). (G) Estimated DFS by Kaplan–Meier analysis of patients with thyroid cancer from the authors' institution comparing DFS of patients with high and low LOX expression levels determined by RT-PCR (p = 0.01). (H) Estimated DFS by Kaplan–Meier analysis of patients with thyroid cancer from the authors' institution comparing DFS of patients with BRAFV600E mutation and WT BRAF (p = 0.8). (I) Estimated DFS of patients with BRAFV600E from the authors' institution. Patients were categorized according to their LOX expression level. TCGA, The Cancer Genome Atlas; DFS, disease-free survival; HR, hazard ratio; CI, confidence interval; RT-PCR, real-time polymerase chain reaction; ddPCR, droplet digital PCR; WT, wild type.