DAXX and gastric cancer: Soft agar assay demonstrated that MKN45 cells formed more colonies that were also larger in size than those observed in N87 and AGS cells (Fig. 6a), which is consistent with the tumorigenic potential of these cell lines.7,8,16 The colony-formation potential of MKN45 cells was significantly reduced when DAXX was overexpressed, whereas it was enhanced when DAXX was knocked down (Fig. 6b, c), suggesting that DAXX inhibits anchorage-independent growth of gastric cancer cells.