In particular EphB4, located at chromosome 7q22.1, and initially isolated from a human hepatocellular carcinoma cell line Hep3Ba [10] has been reported by us and others to be highly expressed in many tumour tissues including colon [11,12], breast [13,14], endometrium [15,16], lung [17] and head and neck [18,19]. This evidence concerns the gene EPHB4 and neoplasm.