HIPK2 and cancer: For example, Hipk2 acts as a tumor suppressor in the context of p53-mediated cell death after lethal DNA damage (Hofmann et al., 2013), and reduced expression of Hipk proteins is seen in several cancer types (Lavra et al., 2011; Pierantoni et al., 2002; Ricci et al., 2013; Tan et al., 2014).