SPARC and cancer: We initially identified the most relevant CAF-associated genes (CAFG, 256 probes in S1 Table) after selection by stroma specific (cS/E = 10 or beyond) and their strong association (R index = 0.9 or beyond) with well-known stromal marker representing fibroblasts [22], SPARC expression in cancer str of the CRC tumors after microdissection in the array-based public database (GSE35602) [20].