Immunohistochemical staining of BIRC6 in prostate cancer tissue arrays showed that BIRC6 expression was elevated in tumors at more advanced clinical stages, i.e. expression of BIRC6 was significantly higher in T3-4 stage tumors than in T1-2 stage tumors or benign prostate (mean intensity ± S.E.: 1.91 ± 0.06, 1.60 ± 0.10 and 1.53 ± 0.13, respectively; Benign to T3-4, p = 0.0032; T1-2 to T3-4, p = 0.0059; Student's t test) (Fig. 1A). The gene discussed is BIRC6; the disease is prostate cancer.