Endocrine Abstracts

Cysteine cathepsins are endo-lysosomal proteases that play crucial roles in thyroid physiology. However, in thyroid cancer, cathepsin B is overexpressed and secreted into the extracellular space, thus promoting migratory phenotypes of thyroid carcinoma cells through excessive extracellular matrix degradation. In addition, we have shown that N-terminally truncated forms of cathepsins B and V which lack the signal peptide and parts of the pro-peptide are localized to the nuclei ...