The major new findings from this study include: 1) VEGF is highly expressed in basal-like breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-468); 2) sunitinib significantly inhibits the proliferation, invasion, and apoptosis resistance in cultured basal like breast cancer cells; 3) sunitinib significantly reduces tumor volume of basal like breast cancer in nude mice in association with the inhibition of tumor angiogeneisis; 4) sunitinib increases breast cancer stem cells in vivo; and 5) sunitinib significantly increases the expression of Notch1 in cultured MDA-MB-468 cells. The gene discussed is VEGFA; the disease is breast cancer.