An elevated nuclear β-catenin can induce the expression of its target genes, including Slug, ZEB1 and MMP-7, thereby promoting EMT and tumour cell metastasis.22,44 Our study observed that knockdown of CDX2 elevated total β-catenin and its nuclear translocation (Fig. 5a and Supplementary Fig. 7a), which was further confirmed by IF and ICC assays (Fig. 5c, d), while ectopic expression of CDX2 had the reserved change (Fig. 5b, e, f and Supplementary Fig. 7a). Here, MMP7 is linked to neoplasm.