Gene regulation by BCL3 in a cervical cancer cell line.

BCL3 is a putative proto-oncogene deregulated in haematopoieitic and solid tumours. It has been suggested that its oncogenic effects could be mediated, at least in part, by inducing proliferation and inhibiting cell death. To provide more insight into the mediators of these effects, we used an unbiased approach to analyse the mRNA expression changes after knocking-down BCL3 using specific shRNAs. One hundred eighty genes were up-regulated and sixtynine genes were down-regulated after knocking down BCL3. Function analyses showed enrichment in genes associated with cellular growth and proliferation, cell death and gene expression. We found that STAT3, an important oncogene in human cancer, was the central node of one of the most significant networks. We validated STAT3 as a bona fide target of BCL3 by additional interference RNA and in silico analyses of previously reported lymphoma patients.