Figure 2: A summary of the effects of progranulin in tumorigenesis. The left panel shows that PGRN stimulates cancer cell migration, survival and mitosis through MAPK and PI3K dependent mechanisms. Although not shown here, progranulin may stimulate the proliferation and activation of tumor resident fibroblasts in the stroma possibly through activating similar biological responses. The right panel shows the growth of SW-13 tumors in athymic nude mice eight weeks after subcutaneous injection into both flanks. Cells that were engineered to over produce progranulin (SW-13/PGRN) formed large tumors (arrow), while control cells (SW-13/vector) gave either small tumor growths (arrow) or undetectable tumor growth. (The scale marker is in cm with 2mm gradations). For details see ref [3].