PLAU and thyroid cancer: Although we are aware that spontaneous in vivo thyroid cancer models are appropriate to elucidate the involvement of PATZ1 in the early stage of carcinogenesis in thyroid follicular epithelial cells and further studies are required to elucidate the precise mechanisms of regulation of uPA and MMPs by PATZ1 in thyroid follicular epithelial cells, our study is the first report demonstrating that PATZ1 exerts its tumor suppressor role by regulating proteolytic enzymes important for fundamental features of tumor cells such as migration and invasion.