Additionally, we further performed in vivo tumorigenic assay with MCF-7 cells after STARD13-correlated ceRNA knockdown and indicated that the knockdown of STARD13-correlated ceRNAs held much stronger tumor-initiating potentials as compared with control cells (Additional file 7: Figure S3D and S3E and Fig. 2c) and increased staining intensity and number of Ki67 (Fig. 2d). This evidence concerns the gene STARD13 and neoplasm.