Moreover, the expression of Wnt genes (Wnt2, Wnt3a, Wnt7a, and Wnt16) was upregulated in a 3D co-culture of tumor cells and CAFs, with Wnt3a and Wnt16 activating Wnt signaling in both cancer cells and CAFs and promoting the CSC phenotype (Song et al., 2024; Yu et al., 2024) showed that Wnt5a expression was upregulated in SLC14A1+ irCAFs and that it positively correlated with the generation of CD133+ and CD44+CD24+ epithelial cells, indicating that Wnt5a from SLC14A1+ irCAFs can promote the formation of stem cell-like phenotypes in bladder cancer cells. Here, CD44 is linked to cancer.