MELK and breast cancer: However, while some groups claimed that MELK overexpression is found in all breast cancers (in comparison to normal tissues), and demonstrated that MELK-targeting siRNA impaired growth in the luminal lines T-47D and MCF7 (Lin et al., 2007; Pickard et al., 2009), others claimed that MELK dependence is specific to basal-like breast cancer (BBC) (Touré et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2014).