AXL and cancer: By phosphorylating activator protein-1 and the transcription factor c-Jun as well as activating transcription factor-2, Gas6/Axl prompts c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) and ERK1/2 signalling in cancer cells; this results in the induction of Slug, which is an E-cadherin transcriptional repressor that belongs to the Snail superfamily of zinc-finger factors and is required for cell migration [44, 63].