Consequently, we detected somatic mutations using exome sequencing technology from 41 CRC tumors and idntified 4 significantly mutated genes with MutSigCV, including TP53 (Q value = 0), APC (Q value = 1.26E-11), KRAS (Q value = 1.11E-10) and SMAD4 (Q value = 7.37E-04) (Fig. 3A and Additional file 1: Table S6). This evidence concerns the gene SMAD4 and colorectal carcinoma.