Indeed, tumorsphere and colony formation, and Transwell, EdU, and immunofluorescence staining assays showed that ZC3H13 knockdown had a suppressive effect on cervical cancer stemness, chemoresistance, metastasis, and cell proliferation that was reversed by ov-CENPK in HeLa and SiHa cells (Additional file 2: Fig. S7c-i). Here, ZC3H13 is linked to cervical carcinoma.