MELK and astrocytoma (excluding glioblastoma): While high MELK expression seems to be a unique phenomenon for BBC in breast cancer, MELK overexpression has been associated with tumor aggressiveness and poor outcome in a number of other cancer types, including glioblastoma (Nakano et al., 2008), astrocytoma (Marie et al., 2008), and prostate cancer (Kuner et al., 2013).