We down-regulated the expression of DCBLD2 in colorectal cancer cells, and the mRNA and protein levels of transcription factors upstream of EMT signal, ZEB1, ZEB2 and SNAIL significantly decreased, which suppress epithelial genes and activate a mesenchymal expression program (Lin et al., 2013; Kotiyal and Bhattacharya, 2016). Here, ZEB1 is linked to colorectal cancer.