Indeed, maspin expression is generally downregulated in primary breast tumours and lost in mammary carcinoma lines (Zou et al, 1994; Hojo et al, 2001; Maass et al, 2001a,2001b), but some infiltrating breast tumours have been found to show strong upregulation (Hojo et al, 2001; Maass et al, 2001b). This evidence concerns the gene SERPINB5 and breast neoplasm.