Furthermore, based on the results derived from GEPIA (http://gepia.cancerpku.cn), which could analyse the RNA-sequencing expression data of 23 types of cancers and normal samples from the TCGA according to the standard processing pipeline,29,30 RIPK4 levels were significantly correlated with VEGF-A expression in BC (r = 0.2, P = 5.5e−05), melanoma (r = 0.45, P = 3.5e−05) and thymoma (r = 0.73, P = 9.7e−21) (Supplementary Figure S4). This evidence concerns the gene RIPK4 and breast cancer.