Lao et al. (2013) have recently shown that the expression of BLM and RECQL4 is increased in primary colorectal cancer whereas expression levels of RECQ1 and RECQL5 are decreased. Consistent with the observation in primary colorectal cancer patient samples, low expression of RECQ1 and significantly high expression of RECQL4 were observed in colorectal cancer cell lines as compared to normal colonic mucosa indicating the feasibility of using cell lines to study the functional consequences of alterations in the expression levels of the RecQ helicases (Lao et al., 2013). The gene discussed is RECQL; the disease is colorectal cancer.