Peng, Jia
Zhang, Qiongsi
Rao, Xiongjian https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5645-9994
Allison, Derek B.
Kong, Yifan
Wang, Ruixin
Liu, Jinghui https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9676-1538
Zhang, Yanquan https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3527-9972
Katz, Wendy
Li, Zhiguo
Liu, Xiaoqi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6613-1746
Funding for this research was provided by:
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | National Institutes of Health (CA196634)
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | National Institutes of Health (CA256893)
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | National Institutes of Health (CA264652)
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | National Institutes of Health (CA157429)
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | National Institutes of Health (CA272483)
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD-HT9425-24-1-0442)
University of Kentucky (P30CA177558)
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of General Medical Sciences (P30 GM127211)
Article History
Received: 17 February 2025
Revised: 12 August 2025
Accepted: 5 September 2025
First Online: 16 September 2025
Competing interests
: The authors declare no competing interests.
: All methods in this study were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations. Animal studies were approved by the University of Kentucky Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC, Protocol No. 2020-3681). Tissue microarray (TMA) slides containing 216 NSCLC patient samples from a clinical cohort were obtained through the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center. Human tumor tissues used in this study were not collected specifically for research purposes, and carried no identifiable personal information. Approval for the use of these human tissue samples was granted by the University of Kentucky Institutional Review Board (IRB) under Dr. Derek Allison.