Although the lack of anti-tumor resistance in Mertk-/-V2 and Mertk-/-V3 mice already pointed to a MERTK-agnostic basis for tumor clearance, we hypothesized that some of the coincidental changes in BMDMs in these mice might compensate for the loss of MERTK by providing redundancy in phagocytosis. Here, MERTK is linked to neoplasm.