All the pancreatic cancer samples displayed an intense desmoplastic response, the synthesis and deposition of collagenous material by stromal myofibroblasts surrounding the adenocarcinoma, and the membrane staining for both Dsg1 (Fig. 1C) and Dsg2 (Fig. 2C) was distinctly weaker in most of the cancer samples analyzed. Here, DSG2 is linked to familial pancreatic carcinoma.