MMP11 and cancer: Given the intimate association between TME and cancer progression, we utilized CIBERSORT to assess the immune-cell infiltration degree which showed that the Tregs, activated NK cells, and macrophage M1/M2 exhibited greater infiltration levels in the MMP11-high expression group than MMP11-low expression group, while the plasma cells and resting mast cells displayed lower infiltration levels (Figure 3A).