Accordingly, the normal regulation of individual S100 family members can be disrupted during tumourigenesis, by aberrant gene-specific methylation events, which have been demonstrated in diverse cancer types including lung, prostate, pancreatic and colon cancer (Wicki et al, 1997; Nakamura and Takenaga, 1998; Lesniak et al, 2000; Feng et al, 2001; Rosty et al, 2002; Rehman et al, 2004, 2005; Sato et al, 2004). Here, S100A1 is linked to cancer.