Assessment of epithelial marker genes showed similar expression scores across fresh and FFPE tissue samples, as EPCAM, KRT5, SCGB3A2, FOXJ1, AGER and SFTPC marked tumor epithelial, Basal, Transitional, Ciliated, AT1, and AT2 cells, respectively, across the datasets (Fig. 2c). Here, EPCAM is linked to neoplasm.