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Nature Cell Biology 8, 1317–1319 (1 December 2006) | doi:10.1038/ncb1206-1317

Upgrading the BCL-2 Network

Heidi L. Galonek & J. Marie Hardwick

BCL-2, the second gene identified at the junctions of rearranged chromosomes in type-specific B-cell lymphoma/leukaemia tumour cells, was unlike any other oncogene known at that time —BCL-2 did not promote cell proliferation, but instead inhibited cell death. There were no clues as to how human BCL-2 prevented cell death, except that it shared sequence similarity with a hypothetical protein, BHRF1, encoded by the B-cell lymphoma-associated Epstein-Barr virus, and that its survival function was conserved in the worm orthologue CED-9 (ref.