In the patients who showed negligible tumour cell lysis, the autologous tumour cells expressed MUC1-related antigenic epitopes much more weakly than the tumour cells in the patients who exhibited strong cytotoxicity (significant statistically at P< 0.0005–0.0045), suggesting that the unresponsiveness of cancer cells to CTLs observed in these patients was mainly due to loss of MUC1 expression or modulation of its antigenicity. The gene discussed is MUC1; the disease is cancer.