Consistent with the hypersensitive response to TRAIL-induced cell death of metastatic cancer cells over-expressing c-Myc, the TRAIL-induced cleavage of procaspase-8, which is an initiator caspase linked to the receptor-mediated apoptotic pathway, was remarkably increased in the metastatic PC3-MM2 and KM12L4A cells as compared to the PC3 and KM12 cells, respectively. The gene discussed is TNFSF10; the disease is metastatic malignant neoplasm.