Among 17 commonly upregulated genes in four LTT patients (Fig. 8E and Supplementary Table S3), 15 genes were functionally associated with lung cancer growth, proliferation, migration, invasion, or metastasis: 10 genes (CCNE1 [31], MMP9 [32], SFN [33], UBE2C [34], CCR2 [35], FAM83A [36], ETV4 [37], MYO7A [38], MMP11 [39], and GSDMB [40]) can promote lung cancer progression, two genes (DEPDC1B [41] and GALNT6 [42]) can promote lung cancer migration and invasion, and three genes (KIF18A [43], ADAM8 [44], and PHLDA2 [45]) can promote lung cancer proliferation, metastasis, or oncogenesis. Here, MMP9 is linked to lung cancer.