Collectively, the contrasting pathobiological roles of WISP-2, including participation in steroid- and growth factor-induced proliferation and the protection of cells from EMT, migration and invasion, under different microenvironments indicates that WISP2 may be a bifunctional cancer gene and that the major role of WISP-2, under culture conditions, is to protect the cells from adopting invasive phenotypes. This evidence concerns the gene CCN5 and cancer.