HGF and neoplasm: We observed that the constitutive presence of human hepatocyte growth factor (hHGF) in the tumor microenvironment of H596 non-small cell lung cancer tumors implanted in homozygous hHGF knock-in transgenic mice induced a more mesenchymal-like tumor state (relative to the epithelial-like state when implanted in control SCID mice), as evidenced by the elevated expression of EMT-associated transcription factors detected by our novel antibodies.