When we considered groups of genes (involved in a pathway) that harbor these non-cancer-specific somatic STR mutations (see Figure 3), we found that, for the NMSC samples, 84% of the samples had non-cancer-specific STR somatic mutation in at least one gene of the p53 signaling pathway; 81% of those samples had non-cancer-specific STR somatic mutation in at least one gene associated with genome integrity; and 81% of the samples had non-cancer-specific STR somatic mutation in at least one gene associated with the Ras signaling pathway. Here, TP53 is linked to cancer.