Asb genes in vertebrates and its function in gastrointestinal cancer

One of the most important and defining processes during development is the pattern formation of the various compartments in embryos; cancer represents aberrant use of these processes. In an effort to discover the participants involved in regulating compartment size, Zivkovic et al. earlier reported a differential display designed to isolate genes that are downregulated upon cell differentiation in Danio rerio (zebrafish) embryos (1).