NGAL mRNA expression levels appeared to be inversely related to the expression levels of miR-138 in the cancer cell lines; thus, NGAL mRNA had high expression levels and miR-138 low expression levels in AsPC-1, RL95-2 and OVCAR-3 cells, whereas the reverse was the case for MCF-7 and HeLa cells. Here, LCN2 is linked to cancer.