VIM and gastric cancer: Furthermore, concordant with the accruing evidence that enhanced expression of COL1A1 promotes metastasis of breast cancer [33], augments the proliferation and invasion of gastric cancer cells by downregulating miR-129-5p [34], and via dysregulation of the wingless-related integration site/planar cell polarity (WNT/PCP) pathway, promotes metastasis in colorectal cancer (CRC), our finding that the knockdown of COL1A1 suppressed HCC cell migration and invasion by downregulating Slug and vimentin, while upregulating E-cadherin, in vitro (Figure 3) is not out of place.