Our findings offer one possible explanation for why genes that encode FAK and other integrin or their effector adhesion proteins – such as, for example, ITGB1 and ILK – are amongst the primary fitness genes identified in drop-out screens in the highly treatment-resistant mesenchymal-like subtypes/GBM cell states (Richards et al., 2021; MacLeod et al., 2024). Here, ILK is linked to glioblastoma.