Bao et al (2004) also demonstrated that a colon cancer cell line with low metastatic potential engineered to overexpress Periostin displayed a striking phenotype of greatly accelerated tumour metastatic growth as xenografts in the animal model system of metastasis. Previous studies have shown that Periostin promotes metastasis and enhances angiogenesis in breast and colon cancers (Bao et al, 2004, Shao et al, 2004). The gene discussed is POSTN; the disease is malignant colon neoplasm.