Understanding that several stress signals, including hypoxia, impaired metabolism, nutrient deficiency, DNA damage (genotoxic stress) and dysregulated nucleotide metabolism, facilitate the initiation and development of cancer, and that dysregulated SUMOylation can play a crucial role in the protection of cancer cells from exogenous or endogenous stress signals [21], we investigated likely association of SAE1 expression with hypoxia and impaired metabolism. The gene discussed is SAE1; the disease is cancer.