The increased phosphorylation of eIF2α is likely to contribute to the depression of protein synthesis in the skeletal muscle of cancer patients, through the inhibition of eIF2B and subsequent translational repression (Rowlands et al, 1998), as was previously observed in murine myotubes treated with PIF and Ang II (Eley and Tisdale, 2007). Here, EIF2A is linked to cancer.