As shown in Fig. 4a, in breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA), samples with R175, R248 and R273 missense mutations have obviously higher mRNA or protein expression levels, comparing to samples with non-hotspot mutations and with no mutation in TP53. In ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma (OV), similar effects were observed for R248 and R273, which are associated with increases in the TP53 mRNA and protein expressions (Additional file 10: Figure S5). This evidence concerns the gene TP53 and ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma.