To determine whether extracellular shedding of syndecan-2 was necessary for syndecan-2-mediated functions in colon cancer, we constructed a non-cleavable mutant (NC) of rat syndecan-2 in which the Asn148-Leu149 residues were replaced with Asn148-Ile149. Here, SDC2 is linked to malignant colon neoplasm.