To investigate the potential involvement of cancer stemness-related genes in IL-1RA-promoted OSCC malignancy, a screening approach using a PCR array was applied, which showed that four stemness markers, including SOX2, THY1, EGF, and KIT, were most downregulated in HSC-3 cells with IL-1RA knockdown (Fig. 5A and Additional file 1: Figure S5). Here, EGF is linked to cancer.