TP53 and cancer: Given the established link between a p53-mediated senescence response in normal primary human cells upon imbalance of HJURP or CENP-A levels (Maehara et al. 2010; Heo et al. 2013), we explored whether CENP-A and HJURP gene expression was specifically up-regulated in human cancers lacking functional p53 (Fig. 1).