This is an important observation for two reasons, (1) the bronchiole and tumor tissue were immediately adjacent to each other and the differences in miR-151a and E-cadherin expression between the bronchiole and tumor tissue was therefore not a result of variation in staining intensity across the slide and (2) both epithelial cells from the bronchiole as well as the NSCLCs are believed to derive from the same stem cells within the lung epithelial cell tissue.21 However, further analysis is needed to demonstrate whether miR-151a is regulating E-cadherin expression in vivo. This evidence concerns the gene CDH1 and neoplasm.