The inhibition of ERK1/2 phosphorylation mediated by formononetin was reported in a number of cancer cells, including prostate cancer (LNCaP cells) (Ye et al., 2012), ovarian cancer (ES2, OV90 and A2780 cells) (Park et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2018a), colon cancer (RKO cells) (Huang et al., 2015), and osteosarcoma (U2OS cells) (Liu et al., 2014b). The gene discussed is MAPK3; the disease is cancer.