PLAU and neoplasm: Cancerous cells demonstrating tmprss9 expression were found to have significant activation of the urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) system, which is heavily involved in remodeling of the extracellular matrix (ECM) for the promotion of tumor progression and metastasis (Okumura et al. 2006; Ulisse et al. 2009; Fontanil et al. 2014).