Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunoreactivity scoring results showed that TCTP and vimentin were highly expressed respectively in 68/109 (62.4%) and 61/109 (56.0%) of NSCLCs and the overall expressions of both were up-regulated significantly in cancer tissues than in normal adjacent tissues (Fig. 2a and Additional file 1: Table S1). This evidence concerns the gene TPT1 and cancer.