Deleted in colorectal cancer is a putative conditional tumor-suppressor gene inactivated by promoter hypermethylation in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Deleted in colorectal cancer (DCC) is a candidate tumor-suppressor gene located at chromosome 18q21. However, DCC gene was found to have few somatic mutations and the heterozygous mice (DCC(+/-)) showed a similar frequency of tumor formation compared with the wild-type mice (DCC(+/+)). Recently, DCC came back to the spotlight as a better understating of its function and relationship with its ligand (netrin-1) had shown that DCC may act as a conditional tumor-suppressor gene.