HTRA3 and cancer: It is however interesting that some of the alpha repeat-associated genes are stress or disease-related: NR3C1 codes for the glucocorticoid receptor which upon binding of stress hormones participates in gene expression regulation [44], HTRA3 shows drastically downregulated expression in some cancers and it is considered to be a tumor suppressor gene [45,46] while VAV1 and PHF20L1 have oncogenic potential [47,48].