The tumor-promoting effects of chemerin primarily involve direct effects on migration, invasion, and metastasis as well as growth and proliferation of cancer cells.
Chemerin expression was significantly correlated with weight (<i>r</i>=0.256, <i>P</i>=0.04), body mass index (<i>r</i>=0.233, <i>P</i>=0.03), tumor size (<i>r</i>=0.235, <i>P</i>=0.03), lymph node metastasis (<i>r</i>=0.265, <i>P</i>=0.045), distant metastasis (<i>r</i>=0.267, <i>P</i>=0.02), and tumor grading, (<i>r</i>=0.421, <i>P</i>=0.004), while it was inversely significantly correlated with estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor expression in malignant breast tissues (<i>P</i>=0.038, <i>r</i>=-0.437, and <i>P</i>=0.047, <i>r</i>=-0.316), respectively.
Chemerin upregulated expression and phosphatase activity of PTEN by interfering with PTEN-CMKLR1 interaction, leading to weakened ubiquitination of PTEN and decreased p-Akt (Ser473) level, which was responsible for suppressed migration, invasion and metastasis of HCC cells.