Interestingly, 42.6% (20/47) of adjacent normal tissues exhibited high MIIP expression, while only 28.6% (28/98) of low-grade CRC tissues (including well- and moderate-differentiated samples) and 18.9% (14/74) of high-grade CRC tissues (i.e. poorly-differentiated samples) showed high MIIP expression (Additional file 1: Fig. S1a). The gene discussed is MIIP; the disease is colorectal carcinoma.