Furthermore, to reveal the functional significance of miRNA-mediated suppression of AXIN2, DKK3 and SFRP1 in the induction of cellular stemness, we restored AXIN2, DKK3 or SFRP1 expression by transfecting both negative control (NC) miRNA- and miR-582-3p-transfected NSCLC cells with individual open reading frame (ORF) expression cassettes (without their 3′-UTR). Here, DKK3 is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.