MYC and cancer: Thus like its mammalian counterpart FIR, Hfp behaves as a tumor suppressor to repress dMyc, which suggests that the mechanism proposed for transcriptional repression of c-Myc by FIR is conserved in Drosophila. These data suggest that the loss-of-function FIR mutants described in colorectal cancer may be sufficient to increase Myc expression, which would be predicted to lead to cancer initiation and progression.