Comparative mRNA profiling of A549-miR-128-3p and vector-control cells showed that several tumour progression-related pathways, including the Wnt/β-catenin, TGF-β, JAK2/STAT3, Hedgehog and NF-κB pathways, were likely to be activated by miR-128-3p overexpression, which were further validated in A549 and Calu-3 cells (Fig. 5a,b). Here, STAT3 is linked to neoplasm.