These assays revealed an upregulation of SDC-2 mRNA and protein (cell lysates, c/l) levels in passage 3 nerve-invasive cancer cell clones (Figure 1, 2); however, this was not constantly reflected in the secretory compartment where - due to unknown reasons such as differential secretion or cleavage - upregulation of SDC-2 was only observed in Colo-357 passage 3 cells (data not shown). The gene discussed is SDC2; the disease is cancer.