Sarcomatoid is a rare and aggressive histologic subset of renal cell carcinoma, and one which is refractory to current treatments. RNA-sequencing was performed on benign, clear cell, and sarcomatoid tissue specimens derived from five patient samples. Hierarchical clustering demonstrated a strong dependence on the patient from which the sample was obtained, not on histological disease designation. Each column represents one sample, and each row represents one gene. Analysis revealed increased expression of Aurora kinases and cell proliferation pathways in the sarcomatoid components of the cancers. See the article by Pal and colleagues (beginning on page 130) for more information.