Although ZDHHC5 or palmitoylation has been linked to lung cancer (Tian et al., 2015; Ali et al., 2018), its association with CSC has not been reported. Earlier, we analyzed a gene-set including hundreds of novel CSC biomarkers based on mRNAsi index and profiled a network of LUAD stem cell genes. We then asked whether these CSC genes could be palmitoylated. To this aim, our initial approach involved a correlation analysis and S-palmitoylation site prediction evaluation. By mapping ZDHHC5 correlated genes and mRNAsi-based cancer stemness genes, we identified INCENP, a stemness gene, as the bridge between ZDHHC5 and CSCs in LUAD.
