As a reference, the relationship between the expression levels of seven biomarker candidates and the clinicopathological factors in different cohort of locally advanced GC (n = 253) was examined, a significant association existed between the expression levels of DSG and histological type and tumor depth, of CLDN18.2 and the incidence of venous invasion, of EGFR and that of lymph node metastasis and venous invasion, of MUC2 and that of venous invasion (Supplementary Table 3). Here, MUC2 is linked to metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.