MAPK8 and colorectal cancer: Considering that KLF5 has been reported as a downstream target of the MAPK pathway in colorectal cancer [27], we analyzed the relationship between KLF5 expression and activation of the MAPK pathway, and found that KLF5 expression levels were significantly linearly correlated with the levels of p-ERK (r = 0.36, p < 0.001), p-JNK (r = 0.81, p < 0.001), and p-p38 (r = 0.75, p < 0.001) (Figure 7d).