We additionally confirmed the expression with mRNA levels of key genes after treatment with lj-1-59 in melanoma cells, which indicated that P21, BBC3, SESN2 and GADD45A expression were significantly upregulated, while MCM2, MCM3, MCM4, MCM7 and PKMYT1 were significantly downregulated (Fig. 4d, Additional file 1: Figs. S3d, S4e). Here, CDKN1A is linked to melanoma.