ESPL1 and neoplasm: In addition, ESPL1 and MCM5 expression were negatively correlated with tumor stage progression (Fig. 3b, c), and regression analysis indicated that ESPL1 and MCM5 were correlated to tumor stages (Pearson correlation = − 0.25713; P = 9.54E-05 and Pearson correlation = − 0.13982; P = 0.023, respectively) (Additional file 1: Table S4).