Next, we performed IHC staining of 140 breast cancer and 42 normal samples and found that the positive rate of TMEM120B in breast cancer tissues(50.7%,71/140) was significantly higher than that in the paired non-cancerous tissues (23.8%,10/42, P < 0.001,Fig. 1E: a-e), with a cytosolic positive expression rate of 47.1%(66/140) (Fig. 1E: a-e), and a nuclear expression rate of 3.5% (5/140; Additional file 3: Fig. S1A). The gene discussed is TMEM120B; the disease is breast cancer.