PARK7 and neuroblastoma: Taira et al. (2004) recently reported that purified DJ-1 harbors catalase activity, and that overexpression of DJ-1 by transfection of neuroblastoma tumor cells inhibits the accumulation of ROS. In contrast, analysis of DJ-1-deficient cells (Martinat et al. 2004) revealed that such cells display an apparently normal initial accumulation of ROS, indicating that DJ-1 likely functions in a protective role downstream of ROS insult. Consistent with this, DJ-1-deficient cells are predisposed to apoptotic death in the context of oxidative stress (Martinat et al. 2004).