CXCR4 and cancer: Dongiovanni et al. (2010) found that iron depletion can up-regulate p53 and induce apoptosis. Further studies in NSCLC found that FTH1 regulates miR-125b/p53 axis up-regulates the pro-apoptotic protein BAX down-regulates anti-apoptotic protein Bcl2 by destroying the mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) and mediating a cascade of enzymatic apoptosis (Biamonte et al., 2018b). Silenced-FTH1 MCF-7 and H460 cells produced a large amount of ROS and activated the CXCR4/CXCL12 signaling pathway, thereby promoting cancer high migration (Aversa et al., 2017a).