HGF and cancer: However, in contrast to previous studies showing that MMC blockade of DNA replication of SCC cells did not correlate with seminal studies showing that HGF secretion by mesenchymal cells resulted in mitogenic effects in hepatocytes [22,24], our observations further supported that XP-C fibroblasts spontaneously exhibit a CAF-like phenotype by promoting ECM remodeling and cancer cell invasion ex vivo and in vivo without promoting obvious changes in SCC cells’ cell cycle.