MEST and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: The expression of miR-449a in 40 pairs of ESCC tissues and matched normal tissues was determined by TaqMan qRT-PCR, and as shown in Supplementary Fig. S6a, miR-449a expression was not only significantly downregulated in tumor tissues compared with normal tissues but also negatively correlated with the expression of MEST (Supplementary Fig. S6b).