The Special AT-rich Sequence Binding Protein 1 (SATB1) exerts multiple 
functions, by influencing the structural organization of chromatin and 
interacting with several co-activators and co-repressors of transcription. Thus, 
SATB1 affects the expression of various genes by multiple mechanisms of action, 
involving three-dimensional chromatin architecture. More recently, SATB1 has 
been connected with solid tumors, tumorigenesis, tumor progression and tumor 
immunity. On the diagnostic side, SATB1 levels were found to correlate with 
clinicopathological features like increased TNM stage, reduced tumor 
differentiation, and a shorter overall survival. SATB1 expression was also 
identified as an independent prognostic marker in various cancers. Moreover, 
different gene knockdown or ectopic overexpression strategies in cancer cells 
have identified SATB1 to affect proliferation, cell cycle, apoptosis, cell 
morphology / cell polarity, EMT and multidrug-resistance as well as tumor 
formation, growth, invasion and metastasis in vivo. These processes are mediated 
through a great multitude of SATB1 target genes, including many (proto-) 
oncogenes. Functional and molecular studies on SATB1 in various cancers are 
comprehensively summarized, and the prospects and caveats of SATB1 as tumor 
marker and as putative target molecule are discussed.