In cholangiocarcinoma, TGF-β signaling triggers the phosphorylation of CLK3, a serine/threonine kinase that directly phosphorylates USP13 at Y708 and facilitates USP13 interaction with c-Myc (Zhou et al., 2020); in GSCs, USP13 can enhance the stability through deubiquitinating c-Myc, activating purine synthesis mediated by c-Myc and inducing the tumorigenesis of GSCs (Fang et al., 2017); in hepatocellular carcinoma, knockdown of USP13 by shRNA can markedly downregulate c-Myc expression, resisting xenograft tumor growth of HCC (Huang et al., 2020). Here, CLK3 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.