We further investigated complexes of CD151 and integrins or p-EGFR using co-immunoprecipitation, the results showed that CD151 directly bound to integrin α3 in NSCLC (Fig. 4d), however, the combination of CD151 and integrin α6/β1 were likely to be indirected (Fig. 4d and Additional file 7: Fig. S4h). Here, CD151 is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.