This protein could act as a decoy that would prevent the binding of ligands to their specific receptors, but could also be internalized and/or bound to a yet unknown receptor to participate in the metastatic process in CRC, through FAK activation (Fig. 2), thus activating the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT pathway15,18,30,37,38. The gene discussed is AKT1; the disease is colorectal carcinoma.