CD44 and melanoma: To further explore the mechanism of RNF128-induced EMT and stemness, we analyzed the Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) of the RNA-seq profiles of the melanoma cohort from the TCGA database and found that CD44 and CTTN levels were positively correlated with Wnt- and MAPK-activated gene signatures, suggesting that the Wnt and MAPK pathways may be involved in the function of RNF128/CD44/CTTN complex-mediated melanoma progression (Additional file 7: Figure S5).