Taken together, our data are in line with in vitro results from other tumour entities, revealing that CXCR4 is essential for proliferation, adhesion, migration and invasion of CXCR4 expressing cancer cells, although the impact of CXCL12 in Huh7 was dramatically stronger on invasion than on proliferation (Mori et al, 2004; Schimanski et al, 2005). Here, CXCL12 is linked to neoplasm.