VEGFA and cancer: As VEGF and TIMP3 are important positive and negative regulator of cancer cells’ invasion and metastasis, respectively; and TIMP3 is a known target of miR-21 [20], and VEGF was reported as a downstream molecular of Mel-18 [21] and miR-21 [16], we tested whether Mel-18 regulates the expression of these two molecules, and found that Mel-18 overexpression resulted in upregulation of TIMP3 and downregulation of VEGF (Figure 3B).