Macrophage migration inhibitory factor: a potential driver and biomarker for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF), a pleiotropic proinflammatory cytokine, has been showed to be associated with the immunopathogenesis of many diseases. Recent study demonstrated that MIF promoted tumorigenesis and tumor progression and played a critical role in various kinds of human cancer including head and neck squamous cell carcinoma(HNSCC). Hence, in this paper we retrospected the relationship between MIF and angiogenesis, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), inflammation, immune response, hypoxia microenvironment, and discussed whether it is a promising biomarker for diagnosis and supervisor of HNSCC.