Furthermore, a thyroid cancer model using carcinogen and an anti-thyroidal agent revealed that Snx5<sup>-/-</sup> mice developed metastasizing thyroid tumors with activation of MAP kinase and AKT pathways, which are postulated to be major pathways of malignant progression of human thyroid carcinoma.
When we investigated models of murine thyroid tumors induced by the administration of carcinogens, high expression of Snx5 was also observed in well-differentiated thyroid tumors, further implying that the tumorigenesis of the thyroid gland was tightly associated with the abundance of SNX5/Snx5.