Further, this demonstrates that the composite covariate of caveolin-1 and activated AKT serves as a linked molecular signature to identify localised tumours that have an increased propensity to metastasise and provides substantial support for a hypothesis that caveolin-1 acts synergistically with the AKT/mTOR pathway in driving disease progression in RCC. The gene discussed is MTOR; the disease is renal cell carcinoma.