Moreover, serum APRIL levels correlate with worse prognosis in CLL patients, and these effects have been attributed to NF-κB-mediated induction of CLL cell survival.7 These observations suggest that APRIL has an important role in CLL cell survival, but confusingly other groups were unable to recapitulate the survival effect in vitro using recombinant APRIL.8, 9 In view of this growing controversy, in a recent Cell Death Discovery report, we used several complementary approaches to study the role of APRIL in (MDC-mediated) CLL cell survival and proliferation.10 The gene discussed is TNFSF13; the disease is B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia.