Methylation of CpG islands within the hTR promoter in several ALT cell lines was associated with gene repression (Hoare et al, 2001), while remodelling of the chromatin environment in the promoters of both hTR and hTERT was associated with differential gene expression in Tel+ or ALT positive tumour cell lines and normal cell line controls (Atkinson et al, 2005) and repression in human mesenchymal stem cells (Serakinci et al, 2006). The gene discussed is ETV6; the disease is neoplasm.