Recently, Acharyya et al. uncovered a network of endothelial-carcinoma-myeloid signalling interactions linking chemoresistance and metastasis through the establishment of an interesting model showing that chemotherapy triggered TNF-α production by endothelial and other stromal cells and heightened CXCL1/2 expression via NF-κB activation in breast cancer cells, thus causing chemoresistance and metastasis10. The gene discussed is TNF; the disease is breast cancer.