M2-polarized macrophages participate in cancer initiation, development and metastasis by improving the invasive properties of tumor cells, immune suppression, hypoxia induction, angiogenic and lymphangiogenic regulation (Hughes et al., 2015; Boutilier and Elsawa, 2021).(PMID: 34209703,26269531) Yang’s study also demonstrated that the cancer cell progression induced by M2 macrophages was mechanistically linked to FBXW7-mediated MCL-1 stabilization in colon cancer cells (Lee et al., 2020) (PMID: 32444799). Here, MCL1 is linked to cancer.