CD44 and cancer: In conclusion, the newly identified pathway of MRE11-CD44-AKT unveiled in this study adds to the growing body of research on the significance of cancer stemness to OSCC malignancy, and these data may shed light on the development of novel therapeutic strategies, such as the potential via hyaluronic acid-based dual-targeting systems [40,41], to guide the drug delivery that simultaneously targets MRE11 or AKT in CD44-overexprssing OSCC.