MT-CO1 and cancer: To verify if CXCL5 expressed by inflamed LECs had an effect on metabolic and lymphangiogenic potential of LECs directly, we treated LECs with CXCL5 for 24 h and found that there was a significant upregulation of a number of crucial metabolic regulators such as CO I (p < 0.0001), ATP6 (p < 0.001), lymphatic markers such as PDPN (p < 0.001), tumor immune evasion marker PDL1 (p < 0.0001), and COX2 (p < 0.0001) (Figure 6F), which has been shown to be involved in tumor lymphangiogenesis in different cancers.