SPARC and cancer: The studies have shown that SPARC overexpression could act as a tumor suppressor gene, which inhibits cancer proliferation, invasion, and angiogenesis in certain types of cancer, including gastric cancer (Zhang et al., 2012), medulloblastoma (Bhoopathi et al., 2010; Bhoopathi et al., 2011), ovarian cancer (Said and Motamed, 2005), and prostate cancer (Wong et al., 2007).