SLC5A3 and non-small cell lung carcinoma: In immortalized A549 cells and primary human NSCLC cells (pCan-1, pCan-2, and pCan-3, derived from three different patients [20]), the mRNA (Fig. 1G) and protein (Fig. 1H) expression of SLC5A3 was significantly higher than that in the primary human lung epithelial cells (“pEpi”) and established BEAS-2B epithelial cells (Fig. 1G and H).