SPEF1 and cancer: For example, in the sample GTE009, 6% of 494 DEGs from EpC-like cells compared to the other malignant tumor cells were found to be overlapped with genes related to cilium assembly, organization, and movement such as PIFO, ZMYND10, DNAH9, TEKT1, DYNLL1, SPEF1, MNS1, DNAAF1, IQCG, SPAG16, and FOXJ1. Indeed, ciliary signaling is known to be a mediator of paracellular signals controlling cancer metastatic processes and responses to therapy, and mutations leading to defects or structural abnormalities in cilia have been shown to be directly correlated with cancer pathogenesis (25).