It has been well documented that, unlike p73 and p63, p53 is frequently mutated in human cancer tissues.43,44 Especially, around 75% of pancreatic cancers carry p53 mutations.42 Hamed et al.52 showed that AsPC-1 cells display GEM-resistant phenotype.51 According to our present results, AsPC-1 cells exhibited a much more higher resistance to GEM relative to p53-proficient pancreatic cancer SW1990 cells, indicating that SW1990 cells but not AsPC-1 cells undergo cell death following GEM exposure in a p53-dependent manner. The gene discussed is TP53; the disease is cancer.