ITGA8 and cancer: For example, REST-Dependent repression of cell adhesion genes in hypoxia (ICAM5, ITGA8, SORBS1, LAMA4, LAMC1, LAMB1, COL14A1 and COL4A5) might be of importance for metastasis as hypoxic suppression of adhesion molecules in cancer cells has been proposed as a mechanism to allow hypoxic cancer cells to escape their stressed environment38, 39.