Some studies indicated that the antiapoptotic function of CD40 is mediated by up-regulated expression of bcl-xL gene, an antiapoptotic member of the bcl-2 family of proteins and that up-regulation of Bcl-xL could be a key event in CD40-mediated survival in both normal tonsillar B cells and the immature B-cell lymphoma WEHI-231 cells [58-60]. Here, CD40 is linked to B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.