Loading
A receptor that helps cancer cells survive stress, resist treatment and spread. Cabozantinib is among the multi-kinase drugs that block it, and dedicated AXL inhibitors and antibody-drug conjugates are in trials.
AXL, a TAM-family receptor activated by the ligand GAS6, drives epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, invasion and immune suppression and is switched on as cancers become resistant to EGFR, ALK and BRAF inhibitors and to chemotherapy. Cabozantinib inhibits AXL alongside MET and VEGFR2, which is thought to contribute to its activity in kidney, liver and thyroid cancers after other treatments. Selective AXL inhibitors such as bemcentinib and the AXL-directed antibody-drug conjugate enapotamab vedotin have been tested without a clear win so far, and AXL remains a resistance target of high interest.
In plain words · A receptor that helps cancer cells survive stress, resist treatment and spread. Cabozantinib is among the multi-kinase drugs that block it, and dedicated AXL inhibitors and antibody-drug conjugates are in trials.
A receptor that helps cancer cells survive stress, resist treatment and spread. Cabozantinib is among the multi-kinase drugs that block it, and dedicated AXL inhibitors and antibody-drug conjugates are in trials.
TAM-family receptor tyrosine kinase activated by GAS6; mediates mesenchymal transition and acquired resistance to targeted therapy.
No product in this corpus aims at AXL yet. Kinases are switched on by binding ATP inside the cell, so most drugs are small molecules shaped to plug that ATP pocket.
Broadly expressed or essential: HPA finds the RNA at low tissue specificity; the 1 medicine aimed at it (Cabozantinib) act on the wild-type protein, so normal tissue is exposed and the therapeutic window comes from the tumour's faster division or its dependence on the protein. HPA AXL: RNA low tissue specificity; blood lineage group enriched (dendritic cells 26 nTPM, NK-cells 11 nTPM); no normal tissue stained high. Distribution: 4 cancer families in the corpus carry a prevalence row, label threshold or catalogue link for it (Lung cancer (all types), Renal cell carcinoma, Hepatocellular carcinoma, Thyroid cancer); Open Targets associates it with 1 specific cancer type at or above 0.5 (acute myeloid leukemia). (Rule 7 of scripts/fetch-target-specificity.ts.)
Sources: Human Protein Atlas AXL tissue; Open Targets ENSG00000167601 associations
First described 1990. Earliest sequence paper UniProt cites for the protein: Partanen et al, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A, 1990, "Putative tyrosine kinases expressed in K-562 human leukemia cells". Source.
TAM-family receptor tyrosine kinase activated by GAS6; mediates mesenchymal transition and acquired resistance to targeted therapy.
RNA: low tissue specificity, detected in all normal tissues. Blood: group enriched (dendritic cells 26 nTPM, NK-cells 11 nTPM).
No normal tissue stained high.
No cancer stained high; medium in breast cancer, endometrial cancer, liver cancer, ovarian cancer.
HPA AXL tissue · HPA AXL pathology · HPA protein class: FDA approved drug targets
Human Protein Atlas version 25.1, antibody staining at reliability approved, enhanced or supported; used under CC BY-SA 3.0. Staining counts are patients per level in the atlas cohort, not population prevalence.
| Cancer | Prevalence | Measure | Note | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-small-cell lung cancer | about 20% | AXL activation among EGFR-mutant lung cancers resistant to EGFR inhibitors | doi.org |
Approximate, population-level figures; the measure column says what was counted. Ranges show the midpoint as a bar.
Query for this target: (TITLE:"AXL" OR ABSTRACT:"AXL") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about AXL, not a curated reading list.
Shares Cabozantinib, Renal cell carcinoma, Hepatocellular carcinoma.
Shares Cabozantinib, Thyroid cancer.
Shares Cabozantinib, Renal cell carcinoma.
Shares Cabozantinib, Renal cell carcinoma.
Shares Cabozantinib, Hepatocellular carcinoma.
Shares Cabozantinib, Renal cell carcinoma.
Shares Thyroid cancer, Hepatocellular carcinoma.
Shares Thyroid cancer, Hepatocellular carcinoma.