MELK and breast cancer: By analyzing gene expression data across five independent cohorts totaling more than 1500 patients (Desmedt et al., 2007; Hatzis et al., 2011; Schmidt et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2005b; Supplementary file 1), we found that higher expression of MELK was strongly associated with higher histologic grade in breast cancer (Figure 2B, Figure 2—figure supplement 1B); the p values for this correlation rank in the top 1% of a total 12,624 or more genes measured in all these cohorts.