Previous studies demonstrated that both KRAS and NAP1L1 promoted tumourigenesis by regulating MAPK pathway activity.19,24,34 To elucidate whether miR-532-5p plays a role in MAPK pathway signalling, we first performed gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) to link the published gene array analysis of different-stage RCCs and matched normal kidney tissue signatures (GEO Datasets: GSE6344).35 GSEA supported that the MAPK-signalling pathway was significantly enriched in the RCC group, strongly suggesting that RCC is closely related to the MAPK-signalling pathway (Fig. 4a). Here, KRAS is linked to renal cell carcinoma.