AK4 and neoplasm: Here, we adopt a modified approach towards characterizing LUAD stage-specific AK4 gene signatures based on Jan et al.’s use of Pearson’s correlation coefficients [13], with the key differences being that our approach encompasses the entirety of LUAD tumor progression using TPM-normalized transcript estimates and additionally excludes genes with no stage-specific significant difference in transcript expression relative to control non-tumorous lung tissue.