BARD1 and neoplasm: Various lines of evidence suggest BARD1 may act as a potent tumor suppressor, including the ability to induce TP53-dependent apoptosis (Irminger-Finger et al., 2001), and the observation that homozygous loss of BARD1 in mice is embryonically lethal, mimicking the properties of BRCA1 (McCarthy et al., 2003).