SPAG5 and neoplasm: SPAG5 mRNA was significantly upregulated in TNBC tumor tissues compared with that in the paired ANTs in our cohort (p = 0.008, Fig. 1b), which is consistent with the findings in the GSE76250 TNBC dataset (p < 0.001, Additional file 2: Fig. S1b), and SPAG5 protein was also unregulated (Fig. 1c).