Interactively, CAFs are capable of synergistically initiating and enhancing EMT (Bhowmick et al., 2004; Lee et al., 2006; Thiery and Sleeman, 2006; Ham et al., 2019); CAFs could also regulate and maintain the stemness of gastric cancer cells via TGFβ signaling (Hasegawa et al., 2014). Here, TGFB1 is linked to gastric cancer.