In pancreatic cancer, cancer cells initiate de-differentiation of adjacent CAAs while the number of CAFs increases, accompanied by the loss of fat cell markers such as leptin, HSL, and PPARγ, and the increase of fibroblast markers such as matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)11 and α-SMA, which further drives the progression of pancreatic tumors (Zoico et al., 2016; Cai et al., 2019). The gene discussed is MMP11; the disease is pancreatic neoplasm.