Quantification of CD44+ cells by flow cytometry demonstrates that downregulation of MALAT1, TALAM1 and, more robustly when both transcripts were targeted, strongly affects the capacity of human breast cancer cells to colonize the lungs of immuno compromised mice, as displayed by the percentage of lung CD44+ cells measured by flow cytometry (Fig. 3f and Additional file 1: Figure S7). This evidence concerns the gene CD44 and breast cancer.