Our major finding is that metastatic colon cancer cells do not enter into apoptosis in response to E-selectin in part because they bind to DR3 to activate the PI3K/NFκB survival pathway and in part because they generate an alternative splice variant of DR3 that lacks trans-membrane and death domains, thus rendering it unable to induce apoptosis. This evidence concerns the gene SELE and malignant colon neoplasm.