Altogether, our findings provided insight into the role of PAX3 as a novel functional tumor suppressor in thyroid cancer through modulating the activities of PI3K/Akt and MAPK signaling pathways and transcription factor FOXO3a, and demonstrated that epigenetic alterations such as promoter methylation should be a major mechanism of PAX3 inactivation in this cancer. The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is thyroid cancer.