To validate these findings, we analyzed the protein expression and clinical significance of HDAC7 by IHC staining in a TMA containing 319 paired tumor–normal tissue samples (Fig. 1c); 32% (103/319) NSCLC sections were categorized as high HDAC7 expression while 17% (54/319) corresponding adjacent normal tissue sections were categorized as high HDAC7 expression. Here, HDAC7 is linked to neoplasm.