CD44 and cancer: As shown in Fig. 7A, the top five up-regulated cancer stemness associated genes include: SNAI2 (SLUG) (8.2 folds), SOX9 (6.4 folds), ITGB3 (integrin β3) (5.4 folds), CD44 (4.3 folds) and MET (2.9 folds) (DU145FP vs. DU145WT).