Immunohistochemical staining demonstrated that expression of TOPK or TLR4 was strongly correlated with breast cancer stage, and that expression pattern of TOPK or TLR4 was similar and significantly increased in high-grade breast cancer, invasive ductal carcinoma and lymph node metastasis (Figure 7 and Supplementary Table 1). This evidence concerns the gene PBK and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.