On the other hand, in the development of lung cancers, despite a similar progressive upregulation of TRF1 from pre-malignant lesions to invasive carcinoma, telomere shortening and DNA damage response were suggested to precede this upregulation and that relative telomere length was shortest in benign squamous metaplasia as compared to low- and high-grade dysplasia and in-situ carcinomas [164]. The gene discussed is TERF1; the disease is cancer.