PLAUR and melanoma: In one study, global transcriptional profiling of a panel of metastatic melanoma cell lines revealed that increased expression of genes activated in response to hypoxia, such as PLAUR (uPAR, the gene encoding the receptor for urokinase plasminogen activator, with roles in localizing and promoting plasmin formation, influencing cell-surface plasminogen activation and degrading extracellular matrix) and HIF1 (Hypoxia-inducible factor 1), was associated with cell lines with higher rates of metastasis [1].