MERTK and cancer: A number of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) are implicated in the pathogenesis of cancer, and among them, aberrant activation of the TAM (Tyro-3, Axl, and MerTK) family of RTKs is known to be associated with pathogenesis of several malignancies, including melanoma [10, 11], leukemia [12–14], and glioma [15, 16].