The samples in both the comparisons (early stage and all stages of tongue cancer) were divided into quartiles independently based on FPKM values of MMP10 and the upper quartile of the samples were considered as the samples with high expression of MMP10 and the rest of the three quartiles were considered as the samples with low expression of MMP10. Interestingly, we found a marginally significant correlation (p < 0.082) of MMP10 transcript expression with lymph node metastasis in both analyses (Table 1). This evidence concerns the gene MMP10 and metastatic malignant neoplasm in the lymph nodes.