Keratinocyte differentiation, skin development and epidermis development gene sets enriched in the high PPS20 group include many genes belonging to the keratin family, among which KRT16 has been used as a basal cell marker [28, 29]; KRT17 has been shown to induce cancer stem cell-like properties in cervical cancer [30] and tumor growth, motility and invasion in gastric cancer [31], which is also associated with poor prognosis in breast cancer [32]. This evidence concerns the gene KRT16 and gastric cancer.