Furthermore, in vitro molecular and functional studies revealed that the direct contact of LECs with metastatic melanoma cell lines triggered changes particularly in the localization of MMP14, an important protease for cancer-cell invasion (Tatti et al., 2015; Turunen et al., 2017), which in turn induced expression and activation of Notch3 and activation of β1-integrin leading to a significant change in the 3D growth phenotype of the melanoma cells. This evidence concerns the gene MMP14 and melanoma.