This review summarizes the oncogenic roles of PAPPA, including its expression levels in multiple malignancies, regulatory and signaling interactions, and pro-tumor functions, which include promoting tumor cell proliferation, invasion, migration and metastasis.
We show that PAPPA is widely expressed by metastatic melanoma tumors and is elevated in melanoma cells exhibiting mesenchymal, invasive and label-retaining phenotypes.
The tumor promoting activity of PAPPA appears to be mediated mainly through augmentation of the IGF signaling pathway as indicated by notable increases in downstream Akt kinase phosphorylation in tumor samples.