AXL and autoimmune disease: Axl, a member of the TAM (Tyro-3, Axl, and Mer) family of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), exerts influence over various disease states, including lupus-like autoimmune disease (Cohen et al., 2002; Lu & Lemke, 2001), which are strongly upregulated in both mouse models of nephritis and streptozotocin-induced diabetic nephropathy (Yanagita et al., 2002; Zhen, Priest & Shao, 2016).