STAT3 and gastric cancer: Cheng et al. (2020) found that the positive crosstalk between CXCR4 and EGFR promotes GC metastasis via the NF-kB pathway. Another study revealed that CXCR4 activates the NF-kB pathway and upregulates the expression of serine proteinase inhibitor clade B member 3, thereby facilitating the migration and invasion of GC cells (Gong et al., 2020). CXCR4 also plays a critical role in tumor angiogenesis in GC by activating the JAK2/STAT3 (Zhang et al., 2017). Furthermore, it promotes the proliferation and invasion processes via the Wnt/β-catenin pathway (Lin et al., 2017).