Non-small cell lung cancer, classified as adenocarcinomas or squamous cell lung carcinomas, is the major cause of cancer death in the United States and worldwide (1). To understand the most significant transcriptional differences between adenocarcinomas and squamous cell lung carcinomas, we mined published microarray data from two separate studies (2, 3). We identified visinin-like protein-1 (VSNL1) as a distinguishing transcriptional feature of squamous cell lung carcinomas, suggesting the

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... ogy of VSNL1 may be relevant to the pathways critical for the development or maintenance of squamous cell lung carcinomas but not of adenocarcinomas. VSNL1 expression was significantly correlated with prognosis of patients with NSCLC, as patients with low tumor expression of VSNL1 possessed significantly longer median overall survival than those with high tumor expression of VSNL1. These analyses will also provide novel tools for diagnostic approaches and for guidance of treatment regimens for a cancer with dismal outlook.