Cancer is among the major causes of human death and its mechanism(s) are not 
fully understood. We applied a novel meta-analysis approach to multiple sets of 
merged serial analysis of gene expression and microarray cancer data in order to 
analyze transcriptome alterations in human cancer. Our methodology, which we 
denote 'COgnate Gene Expression patterNing in tumours' (COGENT), unmasked 
numerous genes that were differentially expressed in multiple cancers. COGENT 
detected well-known tumor-associated (TA) genes such as TP53, EGFR and VEGF, as 
well as many multi-cancer, but not-yet-tumor-associated genes. In addition, we 
identified 81 co-regulated regions on the human genome (RIDGEs) by using 
expression data from all cancers. Some RIDGEs (28%) consist of paralog genes 
while another subset (30%) are specifically dysregulated in tumors but not in 
normal tissues. Furthermore, a significant number of RIDGEs are associated with 
GC-rich regions on the genome. All assembled data is freely available online 
(www.oncoreveal.org) as a tool implementing COGENT analysis of multi-cancer 
genes and RIDGEs. These findings engender a deeper understanding of cancer 
biology by demonstrating the existence of a pool of under-studied multi-cancer 
genes and by highlighting the cancer-specificity of some TA-RIDGEs.