BNIP3 and B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia: Here, we also found that IL21 inhibited the expression of the anti-apoptotic genes BCL2 and BCL2L1 (the latter encoding Bcl-X(L) protein) in CLL cells, whereas it up-regulated the pro-apoptotic genes GZMB and BNIP3 (S1 Table), in agreement with a previous report [24].