STAG1 and cancer: Importantly, the finding that cancer cells harboring deleterious STAG2 mutations remain exquisitely dependent on STAG1 demonstrates that this genetic vulnerability is maintained throughout the process of carcinogenesis and not bypassed by adaptive processes, such as the transcriptional activation of the germline-specific paralog STAG3 (Pezzi et al., 2000; Prieto et al., 2001).