In addition, since a stem cell marker in the normal crypts is considered as a promising cancer stem cell (CSC) marker, we also investigated the association of SMOC2 with candidate CSC markers in human CRCs, such as CD44, CD166, CD133, and CD24. However, none of them showed significant correlations with SMOC2 expression (Fig. 1d). Here, SMOC2 is linked to cancer.