The distinct expression pattern observed for sPLA2 genes suggests that mRNA profiling of the full set of human sPLA2s may be useful to detect colon tumours either by analysing their expression pattern in tumours (Barrier et al, 2005), in circulating blood cells (Burczynski et al, 2005) or directly in serum on circulating mRNA, as recently proposed for other genes (Li et al, 2006). The gene discussed is PLA2G2D; the disease is neoplasm.