We confirm down-regulation of CXCR4 protein expression and upregulation of the p-cdc2/cdc2﻿ ratio in HCT116 cells treated with FF/CAP18 (Additional file 3: Figure S2), which demonstrates that one of the pathways of the anti-cancer mechanism of AMPs can be triggered by targeting CXCR4 via miR-663a overexpression and changing the downstream signals containing p21 and cdc2 (Fig. 4b). Here, CAMP is linked to cancer.