In non-small cell lung cancer cells, HEATR1 depletion also induces p53-dependent apoptosis (He et al, 2019) and in gastric cancer lines it reduces proliferation and survival with increased phosphorylated p53, p38 MAPK, Chk2 and IKBa expression, suggesting it may function via interaction with different pathways (Zhao et al, 2020). The gene discussed is CHEK2; the disease is gastric cancer.