A loss of expression of DSG1 has been significantly associated with better cancer-specific survival in anal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) which encourages us to study the role of DSG1 in breast cancer given its wide range of fpkm expression, i.e. 0.4–0.7 (low to high) detected at AUC of 0.94 by ImaGene (Myklebust et al., 2012). The gene discussed is DSG1; the disease is cancer.