MET and neoplasm: However, most of the studies had small sample sizes, and only a few of them investigated its clinical implications [22], [24] or performed comparison with DNA or protein status [14], [25]: Kuniyasu et al. firstly studied MET mRNA expression using the Northern-blot analysis, and they reported that expression of 6.0-kb transcript was closely correlated with tumor stage and LN metastasis [22].