With respect to Axl, elevated serum levels of soluble Axl extracellular domain (sAxl) have been found to be a biomarker for hepatocellular carcinoma (Reichl & Mikulits, 2016), and mice lacking Gas6, the obligate Axl ligand (Lew et al, 2014), display enhanced tissue damage in a liver ischemia model (Llacuna et al, 2010). This evidence concerns the gene AXL and hepatocellular carcinoma.