Adjacent liver of the metastatic niches in PDAC patients exhibited enhanced SLIT2 staining, indicating that SLIT2 was derived from local hepatocytes but not tumour cells (Fig. 3a, b), which was further confirmed by costaining of SLIT2 and albumin as well as SLIT2 and ALB mRNA via in situ RNAscope in both mouse- and human-derived tissues (Fig. 3c, d, f, g). This evidence concerns the gene ALB and neoplasm.