VEGFA and cancer: VEGFA not only increases the tumor-initiating stem cell population in several different murine and human cancer models,18, 19, 20, 21, 22 but is also known to induce EMT and metastasis.43, 44, 45 Our prior work showed that VEGFA rapidly activates STAT3 to induce SOX2 and increase the CSC population in breast and lung models.19 Here, we investigated whether upregulation of Sox2 by VEGFA might have a role not only in CSC expansion but also contribute to the activation of EMT and metastasis.