HOXB13 and neoplasm: Edwards et al (2005) have recently shown that HOXB13 was markedly downregulated in tumour compared to normal colon in their cDNA microarray experiment despite limited number of tumour samples. We limited patient tumour samples to those from the descending colon to rectum since the expression of HOXB13 is known to be restricted to the distal colon and rectum by both mouse and human studies (Sreenath et al, 1999; Jung et al, 2004b).