With regards to tumour mass dormancy, we monitored p53/β1 integrin-deficient mice and found that loss of p53 fully restored the defective growth rate due to β1 integrin deletion (Fig. 5c), yet p53 inactivation was unable to restore the reduced metastatic potential of β1 integrin-deficient cancer cells (Figs. 5d, S4c–e). This evidence concerns the gene TP53 and cancer.