ACTA1 and neoplasm: Recent findings have also shown that the levels of CAFs markers such as α-SMA, thrombin and fibronectin are significantly higher in CRC than in normal colonic mucosa, and α-SMA expression is negatively correlated with the number of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), while fibronectin displays positive coexpression (Zadka et al., 2021), and that CAF phenotypes are also correlated with CD8+ T-cell infiltration (Johnson et al., 2020), hence underscoring the importance of CAFs in regulating CRC immunity.