HMOX1 and cancer: Moreover, some reports demonstrated that HO-1 is elevated in various human malignancies and contributes to settle the tumor microenvironment for cancer cell growth, angiogenesis, and metastasis, as well as resistance to therapy, regarded as a survival molecule exerting a favoring role in cancer progression (Hjortso and Andersen, 2014; Nitti et al., 2017).