Tumors are typically stiffer than the surrounding normal tissues due to an increased ECM deposition by cancer-associated fibroblasts that express alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) (Bauer et al., 2020), allowing the tumor to biomechanically interact with and respond to the stiffness of the ECM (Wullkopf et al., 2018). Here, ACTA1 is linked to cancer.