MST1 and head and neck cancer: Furthermore, post-translational modifications of proteins in the non-classical Hippo pathway—such as the ubiquitination, acetylation, and SUMOylation of MST1/2, ΔNp63, TEAD family members, RASSF1A, Beclin 1, and MOB proteins—significantly affect downstream signaling and YAP/TAZ activity, thereby playing crucial roles in the regulation of cell proliferation, apoptosis, and autophagy, and are closely linked to drug resistance and invasiveness in head and neck cancer (Sannigrahi et al., 2015; Lin et al., 2024; Fang et al., 2018).