Using the expression profile of a known metastasis suppressor, CRMP-1, as a template to search for and compare transcriptome expressions in publicly accessible microarray datasets, trophinin (TRO) was identified as the best correlated gene. The expression pattern of trophinin in a lung cancer cell lines of invasion model was investigated using quantitative RT-PCR. The role of trophinin in cancer metastasis was investigated by measuring the change of invasion activity in trophinin gene-transfected cell lines. The relationship of trophinin and the clinicopathological characteristics of lung cancer were further examined by immunohistochemical staining.