Considering the three essential ANKRDs (ANKRD29, ANKRD44 and ANKRD66) were congruously down-regulated in NSCLC, we filtrated the most critical ANKRD in NSCLC development using GEO datasets (GSE118370, GSE19804, GSE33532, GSE18842 and GSE31548) and identified 13 candidate genes (CLDN18, STXBP6, PTPRB, PDK4, BTNL9, ADRB1, EMCN, ABI3BP, GIMAP8, ROBO4, HHIP, ANKRD29 and ADAMTS8), whose expression was obviously decreased in cancerous tissues compared to normal tissues (Fig. 2G). Here, CLDN18 is linked to non-small cell lung carcinoma.