Within colon cancer, Shen et al., 2017 performed a study to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in patient samples compared to non-cancerous controls and found that UGDH was key to a network of genes that regulated cancer cell metabolism (UGDH, ALDH1A1, FABP4, and MGLL). This evidence concerns the gene UGDH and malignant colon neoplasm.