To confirm that, we checked and visualized the expression of normal pancreatic epithelial cell marker genes, including GCG, TTR, SST, PPY [23], common epithelial cell markers, including CDH1, TRIM28, LAMA5 and EPCAM [48, 49], and mesenchymal signature genes, including S100A4, VIM, ITGA6 and CTNNB1 [49] in the normal epithelial cell and primary and metastatic cancer cells by heatmap (Fig. 6A, Fig. S5). This evidence concerns the gene ITGA6 and metastatic malignant neoplasm.