Recently, the T91A single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in STK15, which generates the substitution F31I, and has been reported to influence genomic instability (Ewart-Toland et al, 2003; Kimura et al, 2005), has been proposed as a low penetrance variant for a number of tumours including colorectal cancer (CRC) (Ewart-Toland et al, 2003, 2005). Here, AURKA is linked to colorectal carcinoma.