We completely agree with the reviewer that it will be informative to demonstrate the NR2F1 expression in both primary and metastatic breast cancer and the possible correlation of NR2F1 expression with metastasis. In Figure 3C, we present NR2F1 expression in primary breast cancer with and without distant metastases. NR2F1 expression was not increased in the group with later recurrence in four cohorts in this analysis. We also present NR2F1 expression between primary and metastatic breast cancer in Figure 3E with no significant difference. We did not find a clear association of NR2F1 with distant metastasis in this study. On the other hand, NR2F1 expression was higher in primary breast tumors with lymph node metastasis in all four cohorts, as shown in Figure 3B, suggesting an association between NR2F1 and lymph node metastasis. Given these results, we revised the results section as follows.
No significant difference was found in the NR2F1 expression with and without distant metastasis in 5 independent primary breast cancer cohorts (Figure 3B).