To investigate whether the inhibitory effect of STAT3 decoy ODN on lung carcinoma cells is correlated with expression of STAT3-target genes, RT-PCR was used to detect the mRNA levels of STAT3 target genes such as cell cycle genes cyclin D1 and cyclin E, or apoptosis regulating genes mcl-1 and bcl-xl. Here, BCL2L1 is linked to lung carcinoma.