Contrary to the down-regulation observed in the present study, up-regulation of FABP4, LEP, CIDEC genes was reported at transcript and or protein level35,71–74 in lung, thyroid, colorectal, and tongue squamous cell carcinoma; these differences may be attributed to tissue-specific differences in gene expression, differences due to the techniques employed in the studies, which need to be established by experimental validation. Here, LEP is linked to tongue squamous cell carcinoma.