SPARC and cancer: Pancreatic and other cancer cells undergo methylation-induced silencing of numerous growth regulatory genes during clonal expansion (e.g. p16, hMLH1, p14arf, SPARC, RELN, TFPI-2 and others [3], [30], [57], [59], [60], [61], [62]) and it is notable that we found no evidence that these genes are silenced by methylation in CAFs.