Ubiquitin specific protease 13 (USP13), which belongs to the deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs) superfamily, is implicated in the occurrence and progression of human cancer via promoting deubiquitination and stabilization of substrate proteins, including myeloid cell leukemia 1 (MCL1) (Zhang et al., 2018), phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) (Zhang et al., 2013), melanocyte inducing transcription factor (MITF) (Zhao et al., 2011), Myc (Fang et al., 2017), USP10 (Liu et al., 2011), and RAP80 (Li et al., 2017). The gene discussed is MCL1; the disease is cancer.