The result showed that PTEN expression positively correlated with lnc-GAN1 (Fig. 7c, R2 = 0.67, P < 0.001) and negatively correlated with miR-26a-5p in NSCLC tissues (Fig. 7d, R2 = − 0.46, P < 0.05), indicating that PTEN is a target gene of miR-26a-5p and mediates the tumor-suppressor role of lnc-GAN1 in NSCLC. Here, GAN is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.