The tyrosine-kinase inhibitor sunitinib targets vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin: a marker of response to antitumoural treatment in metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Background: Vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin is an endothelial cell-specific protein responsible for endothelium integrity. Its adhesive properties are regulated by post-translational processing, such as tyrosine phosphorylation at site Y in its cytoplasmic domain, and cleavage of its extracellular domain (sVE). In hormone-refractory metastatic breast cancer, we recently demonstrated that sVE levels correlate to poor survival.