Nature Genet. doi:10.1038/ng.465 (2009)

The SOX2 gene, famous for its role in helping to reprogram adult cells into stem cells, is also a cancer driver.

Matthew Meyerson of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, and his colleagues searched genome-wide for tumour-promoting genes in human samples of lung and oesophageal squamous-cell carcinomas. They found that a region around SOX2 was frequently replicated in both diseases. SOX2 expression is necessary for the growth of lung and oesophageal squamous-cell cancer lines. Overactivating SOX2 also turned normal cells cancerous with help from a couple of other genes.