We suggest that the normal tissue expression of the different AID and APOBEC deaminases25 is quantifiably altered during chronic pathogen infections (eg, HBV) and during cancer progression, such that expression across all members of the APOBEC3 tandemly arrayed haplotype family (as well as in AID, APOBEC1, APOBEC2, APOBEC4) is elevated leading to new functional combinatorial associations at the protein level of different zinc DBDs. Here, AICDA is linked to cancer.