Consistently, we found positive and significant correlations between the mRNA expression of TBX2 and WNT3A, MMP2 in lung adenocarcinoma data of TCGA, including 515 patients of lung adenocarcinoma, illustrated in Supplementary Figure S5A, B. Additionally, high levels of MMP2 and MMP9 in the plasma of lung cancer patients have been shown to correlate with distant metastasis of lung cancer 57. Here, MMP9 is linked to lung adenocarcinoma.