CD44 and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: In a study conducted by Saboor-Maleki et al., auraptene upregulated P53 and P21 and downregulated the expression of stem-like cancer cell markers such as CD44 (cluster of differentiation 44), BMI-1 (B cell-specific moloney murine leukemia virus integration site 1) and increased the sensitivity of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) to paclitaxel, cisplatin, and 5-fluorouracil (Saboor-Maleki et al., 2017).