EZR and lung cancer: In addition, Ezrin knockdown clearly upregulated the expression of epithelial markers (E-cadherin and Zo-1), in agreement with the previous reports which uncovered that Ezrin depletion restored the membranous expression of E-cadherin and inhibited cytoplasmic expression of β-catenin in lung cancer cells.31 Additionally, we found that the levels of Vimentin and MMP9 were decreased following Ezrin depletion.