In contrast to the 2D culture, the ablation of MLL1 in 3D sphere cultures had a rapid effect on the growth and self-renewal of the tumor cells: secondary sphere formation of shMLL1 cells was reduced by 80% in Ls174T and by 60% in DLD1 cells, compared to control cells (Fig. 4a and Supplementary Fig. 4i, quantifications on the right). The gene discussed is KMT2A; the disease is neoplasm.