Employing Phiand Cramers V correlation analysis, we found a significantly negative correlation between TSP50 and E-Cadherin expression (v = − 0.228, P = 0.000) not only in gastric cancer tissues, but also in lymph node metastases and adjacent non-tumor gastric mucosa (Fig. 4, Table 1, Additional file 1: Table S1). The gene discussed is PRSS50; the disease is gastric cancer.