IRX5 and colorectal cancer: IRX5 alone has also been reported to be an oncogenic gene in hepatocellular carcinoma, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer by regulating cancer cell cycle and apoptosis (Myrthue et al., 2008; Zhang D.L. et al., 2018; Zhu et al., 2019, 2020).