Additionally, telomerase directly contributes to cellular metabolism, signaling, and the control of gene expression in genes such as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), vascular endothelia growth factor (VEGF) and nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) dependent target genes in ways that are crucial for carcinogenesis, revealing telomere-independent regulation of cancer cell proliferation [44]. Here, EGFR is linked to cancer.