Through correlation analysis of transcriptome data in TCGA, we found that the expression level of SATB2-AS1 was positively correlated with the E-cadherin RNA level (r = 0.33, p <  0.001) and negatively correlated with the TGF beta 1 (r = − 0.26, p <  0.001) and Vimentin RNA levels (r = − 0.18, p <  0.001) in CRC tissues (Additional file 3: Figure S2e). The gene discussed is TGFB1; the disease is colorectal carcinoma.