This finding echoes the work of Yu Fu et al., whose single-cell and spatial transcriptomics analyses also revealed that MDK-NCL promotes the formation of an immunosuppressive microenvironment in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), with high MDK-NCL expression associated with increased infiltration of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and M2-like macrophages (18, 33, 34). Here, MDK is linked to lung adenocarcinoma.