BIRC5 and breast cancer: Additionally, BUB1 and BIRC5 have been linked to stemness, where depletion of BUB1 reduced cancer stem cell potential in MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 breast cancer cell lines and BIRC5 is commonly expressed in embryonic tissues and cancer but not in adult tissues (Han et al., 2015; Ghaffari et al., 2016; Hamy et al., 2016).