STAT1 and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma: As we found that STAT1C-induced apoptosis in ESCC correlates with the down-regulation of several pro-survival proteins such as BCL-2 and BCL-xL, previous studies also have shown that STAT1 can promote apoptosis by down-regulating BCL-2 and BCL-xL in multiple myelomas [29].