Briefly, the tissues that were previously formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded were sliced into 4 µm sections, and were then incubated with the primary antibody recognizing human DAB2IP (#ab87811, abcam) at 1:200 dilution at 4°C overnight. The protein was visualized using a tissue staining kit (Zhongshan Biotechnology, Beijing, China) according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The final staining score was determined by color intensity and positive cell rate, ranging 0–12 which was described in our previous study.23 (link),24 (link) Patients were classified into two groups: scores 0–4 were considered as none or low, while 5–12 were considered as high expression.