ASCL1 and cancer: Interestingly, the ASCL1 role is evolutionarily conserved; in fact, ASCL1 overexpression efficiently reduces growth capacity of proneural human cancer stem cells-derived models of GBM and promotes a lineage switch, activating the neuronal fate and repressing the glial one (Narayanan et al., 2019; Azzarelli et al., 2022).