By RT–qPCR, we observed that all cancer cells co-cultured with CRISPRa-treated adipocytes had significantly reduced levels of the proliferation marker MKI67 (other than Panc 10.05 and DU-145 treated with PRDM16 CRISPRa) compared to control cells, with UCP1-CRISPRa having the greatest effect (Fig. 1d). Here, MKI67 is linked to cancer.