In addition to stimulating proliferation, migration and tube-formation of endothelial cells (Supplementary Figs 2a–c and 3), the IGF2-activated fibroblasts also promoted tumour malignancy in a multitude of ways such as enhancing the invasion of oesophageal cancer cells (Supplementary Fig. 2d) and migration of bone marrow cells (Fig. 5f) by secreting VEGF. This evidence concerns the gene VEGFA and neoplasm.