SPP1 and thyroid gland papillary carcinoma: Papillary thyroid cancer samples harboring the BRAF V600E mutation, or RET/PTC1 or RET/PTC3 rearrangements, also had higher vimentin, RUNX2 and osteopontin expression in relation to non-mutated samples [32], once again highlighting the importance of these genetic alterations to the putative OPN-mediated EMT in papillary thyroid cancer progression.