Among metabolism-related genes, IDO1 and NCOA2, responsible for aggressive tumor characteristics, exhibited consistently negative correlations with PEBP1/STK11 expression across most cancer types, thus suggesting that these genes may be involved in inhibitory metabolic pathways that counteract tumor progression in the presence of PEBP1/STK11 co-expression (Figure 5A). This evidence concerns the gene NCOA2 and cancer.