CD44 and cancer: Previous studies showed p-ezrin directly promotes cell mobility and migration in cancer cell lines through the activation of different signaling pathways, including Rac1, CD44 and Cdc42 (Gautreau et al., 1999; Zohar et al., 2000; Prag et al., 2007; Saito et al., 2013), while in pancreatic cancer ezrin activates FAK/Akt to promote proliferation (Xu and Zhang, 2021).