Among these pathways, PI3K-AKT (indicated by the arrows) was selected for further analysis (Fig. 3A), because a relatively large number of co-expressed genes (such as BCL2L1, YWHAZ, ITGB4, ITGA9, CDKN1A, and so on; Additional file 2) were associated with this pathway and PI3K-AKT signaling plays a crucial role in thyroid carcinogenesis and metastasis [26, 27]. Here, CDKN1A is linked to thyroiditis.